As its modest title suggests, A Bit of Light (Kami nour) is a quiet film. Like its middle-aged protagonist, the movie is straightforward and unaffected, and compellingly so. He’s a Tehran physician, out on bail after being arrested for tending to wounded protesters. His medical license revoked by government authorities, his office ransacked and placed under official seal, he insists that he’s “no longer a doctor” and has concluded that there’s nothing left to live for. But as he moves through the day that he intends to be one of his last on earth, a sense of purpose persists and, crucially, something beyond it is reawakened.
In its understated celebration of the ties that bind us, Ali Asgari’s absorbing drama, which he wrote with Shadmehr Rastin (whose credits include Jafar Panahi’s Oscar-nominated feature It Was Just an Accident), hardly says anything new. And yet it packs an undeniable wallop with its twinges of grief and flutters of absurdity. A Bit of Light would be potent under any circumstances, but within the context of this perilous moment in world history — the movie’s events unfold as Tehranis are bracing for threatened American attacks — the soul-deep weariness and struggle for hope that it evokes will resonate with many audiences.
