11.   As with everything theatrical, the restaurant and bar scene has its own cliques and clans.

12.   A nothing-special Pissarro street scene has a patch of electric Jacob van Ruisdael-blue sky.

13.   Action films run about two hours in length, so only a few scenes have the cut-cut-cut rhythm of MTV.

14.   All this might seem a little anachronistic and didactic, and the final scene had a whiff of that.

15.   But Ghobadi was dissatisfied with the initial rushes and decided that many scenes had to be shot again because of the weather.

16.   But now the momentum in the capital has swung so sharply that the very same scene has a very different meaning.

17.   But the acting is so powerful that the scenes have documentary credibility.

18.   But the film is so impatient to return to its special effects that these scenes have little resonance.

19.   But the many darker scenes have bloody consequences.

20.   But the scenes each have their advantages.