As others have stated, this is an unusual film. It's amazing that the screenwriter-director who adapted his own play for the screen did not become another Salman Rushdie, with a fatwa directed against him. (Maybe that did happen and I just don't know about it.) While I agree with the film's central theme, the terrible injustices done to females in Muslim countries, I think the film goes too far to make its point. It ends up in the same category as movies like "Thelma and Louise" and "Sling Blade." Both of those films refused to include a straight male with anything decent or likable about him. All men were shown as being jerks at best. In "Silence of the Lambs," the only men Clarice could trust were much older (Scott Glenn, her boss) or crazy like Hannibal Lechter. The Scott Glenn character was okay because his age made him seem kind of asexual, not horny, not a threat.
**SPOILERS** If its story is taken literally, "The Patience Stone" would actually be presenting us with a terribly dumb or delusional protagonist. The young Muslim woman who takes care of her obviously dead husband does not seem to notice any unpleasant odor coming from her husband's corpse as it lies in a room for several days. Nor does she take note of the rigor mortis that would have set in. The shock ending, which has this man suddenly open his eyes and become violent toward her after she reveals the final secret/insult to his "values" that is distasteful enough to awaken his corpse has to be taken in an allegorical, folktale sort of way. The filmmakers could not really be asking us to take his awakening at face value.
As in "Sling Blade," in which a mentally challenged male is the only kind of straight male who is worthy of approval, in "The Patient Stone," only an orphaned young (still trainable) male -- who himself is abused by other men -- is worthy of the protagonist's love. Only a damaged male is a good male.
**END OF SPOILERS**
It's easy to root for this protagonist. She has been treated was than an animal by her religion and the men. But not every ax needs grinding that is this thorough. Not every pro-female-rights movie needs to demonize every male unless he is old or handicapped.
**SPOILERS** If its story is taken literally, "The Patience Stone" would actually be presenting us with a terribly dumb or delusional protagonist. The young Muslim woman who takes care of her obviously dead husband does not seem to notice any unpleasant odor coming from her husband's corpse as it lies in a room for several days. Nor does she take note of the rigor mortis that would have set in. The shock ending, which has this man suddenly open his eyes and become violent toward her after she reveals the final secret/insult to his "values" that is distasteful enough to awaken his corpse has to be taken in an allegorical, folktale sort of way. The filmmakers could not really be asking us to take his awakening at face value.
As in "Sling Blade," in which a mentally challenged male is the only kind of straight male who is worthy of approval, in "The Patient Stone," only an orphaned young (still trainable) male -- who himself is abused by other men -- is worthy of the protagonist's love. Only a damaged male is a good male.
**END OF SPOILERS**
It's easy to root for this protagonist. She has been treated was than an animal by her religion and the men. But not every ax needs grinding that is this thorough. Not every pro-female-rights movie needs to demonize every male unless he is old or handicapped.