Mohsen Makhmalbaf first came to my attention when Kandahar was featured on the big screen last year. His memorably surrealistic imagery, depicting a hoard of one legged Afghans pursuing floating prosthetic legs dropped from a helicopter, made my choice to check out his 1998 film, Sokhout (The Silence), a "no brainer" at a local festival. Anyone interested in creative cinema and intimate character studies should do likewise.

Generally beautifully photographed, Iranian cinema characteristically tells simple stories, revolving around individuals and families, like Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven, about a brother's efforts to replace his sister's missing shoes. The Silence represents that same prototype—Makhmalbaf alternately captures his subjects from afar (like across the shimmering river that forms the bottom 2/3 of the screen) and extreme close-up that washes out the background. He uses this to great effect on this simple story.

Ten-year-old blind boy Khorshid (Tahmineh Normatova) daily takes the bus to work as an instrument tuner in order to bring in rent money for his mother. At the beginning of the film, the landlord has given them an ultimatum to pay up, or be evicted in five days, and Khorshid's boss has just fired him for coming in habitually late.

The minimalist plot will not satisfy most American palates, but Makhmalbaf's film is full of sensual delights, creatively placing the audience into the blind boy's world. Especially amazing are the heightened sounds—the rhythmic door knocking, the hum of the trapped bee, the gurgling river—that we take for granted in the sighted world. But the young blind boy is acutely aware of these sounds and the various textures he can touch, whether determining a friend from the feel of her chin or the freshness of pita bread. Khorshid's special love is for beautiful sound, however, as he clearly demonstrates by choosing the bread of a girl with a "pretty voice" despite the dryness of her wares.

His acute hearing is unlike "norma" people. Two schoolgirls on the bus attempt to memorize a poem that Khorshid picks up within two recitations—he explains to them that their eyes distract them from learning the poem and proceeds to teach them with their eyes closed. To Khorshid, sound is everything, and he constantly seeks beautiful music. The landlord's knocking turns into the opening moments of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, becoming both fantasy and obsession, as are other beautiful sounds. To keep Khorshid from following voices and music he likes, he places cotton in his ears, and when he gets lost in the marketplace, his friend Nadareh (Nadereh Abdelhyeva) finds that the only way to locate him is by closing her eyes and following the music.

To appreciate The Silence, you'll need to proceed in similar fashion. Forget most of what you know as far as acceptable cinema—don't expect plot complications, villains, or dazzling special effects. Just turn off the cell phone, shut out the outside distractions, and follow Makhmalbaf's sumptuous visuals and sounds to get inside Khorshid's world. It's not flashy enough for modern MTV audiences, but if you're looking for a break from the usual cinematic routine Makhmalbaf provides a rich new way to experience life around us. For those who have difficulty handling the languid pacing of the seventy-six-minute film, perhaps they can close their eyes and open their aural faculties to gain more of its pleasures.