On a spring day, a young couple drifts apart and back together: Nima, lost in office routines and an evening celebration, and Tara, roaming markets in search of both a dress and a place to bury her secrets. Meanwhile, Aban, a young woman swept up in the tremors of first love, embarks on a journey of her own. Their paths, at once ordinary and fateful, begin to circle and echo one another in ways that move beyond the limits of time and space.

With its interplay of colour and black-and-white imagery, “Duality” straddles mundane wandering and poetic photo storybook, with dialogued voiceover narration and evocative music further heightening a sense of constant dislocation. Fragmented, shifting temporalities and spaces reveal a fragile architecture built as much on absence as on presence. Director Abbas Nezamdoost crafts a daringly structured work that pushes Iranian cinema into new visual territory, layering moments of visual lyricism with slices of everyday life. The result is a contemplative, formally inventive film that captures fleeting instants of longing, grief, and the shadows left behind by love, in a city forever suspended between motion and stillness.

Massimo Iannetti