American Cinematographer - September 2013 - 20

A woman
(Golshifteh
Farahani) cares
for her
comatose
husband (Hamid
Djavadan) in
The Patience
Stone.

Hard Truths in Afghanistan
By Benjamin B

The Patience Stone, directed by Atiq Rahimi and shot by
Thierry Arbogast, AFC, takes place mostly in a room in Afghanistan
where an Afghan woman (played by Golshifteh Farahani) tends to
her comatose husband (Hamid Djavadan), who was wounded in
battle. She speaks freely to him as she couldn’t before, gradually
revealing more and more of herself. Their time together is sometimes
interrupted: by their children, by the local mullah, by the war outside
and by visits to the woman’s aunt, who runs a brothel. We learn
about the wife’s subjugation through a series of flashbacks, but the
film mainly shows her speaking to her unconscious husband, who
acts as a proverbial “patience stone,” a stone that receives one’s
confessions and then breaks apart to offer deliverance.
The Patience Stone is Rahimi’s second film, and it is based on
his novel of the same name, which won the Prix Goncourt. Arbogast,
one of Europe’s leading cinematographers, is perhaps best known for
his collaborations with Luc Besson, including La Femme Nikita, The
Professional, The Fifth Element and The Lady. “I read Atiq’s novel and
thought it was wonderful — I fell under its spell,” says Arbogast. “I
had lunch with him, told him I loved the story and described the kind
of lighting I could do for the film. I said, ‘I know there’s a small
budget, but I want to do this film.’ I really did everything I could to
get the job. I courted him!”
AC recently spoke to Arbogast about his work with Rahimi.
20

September 2013

American Cinematographer: You mentioned this
project had a small budget. What was it, and how did you
organize the shoot?
Thierry Arbogast, AFC: I think the budget was €1.4 million.
We shot for 5½ weeks, mostly in one neighborhood in Casablanca,
Morocco. The two main locations, the woman’s home and her
aunt’s house, were in the same complex, 100 meters apart. We also
shot in Kabul, Afghanistan, for half a week. We had a small crew: a
camera operator, four electricians, two grips, a camera assistant and
a digital-imaging technician.
How did you work with the director on set?
Arbogast: Atiq is a very refined person, and our collaboration was done in the optimal way. He would start a scene in
rehearsal alone with his actors, and then we would come in, and
he’d say, ‘This is how the scene is played.’ We reinterpreted that with
my operator, Saba Mazloum, and suggested how to film it, with
possible modifications. Atiq had some very precise ideas, and we
spoke constantly during the shoot about how to transition from one
sequence to another.
The film is widescreen. What technique did you use?
Arbogast: We shot with an Arri Alexa Plus using ProRes
4:4:4. We wanted a widescreen image, but the Alexa with a 4:3
sensor wasn’t available yet, and I didn’t want to crop the image, so
I decided to use Hawk V-Lite [1.3x] primes. Their semi-anamorphic
squeeze enables you to fill almost the entire 16:9 frame with a
2.40:1 image. I like the lenses; they don’t create a hard image. This

American Cinematographer

The Patience Stone photo by Benoit Peverelli, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. Frame grabs courtesy of Michael Gentile, The Film Production.

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