Fights for Freedom

For the length of Abolfazl Jalili's masterful, mysterious Delbaran, an Afghan boy scampers about, trying to earn a living at a primitive truck stop in the unforgiving Iranian wilderness. Kaim is a war refugee and an illegal immigrant who expects neither pity nor asylum -- but doesdemand a fair shake. The same could be said of Fatma, the scarred title character in Khaled Ghorbal's unflinching exposé of the limits to women's liberation in "liberal" Tunisia.

In an era of wavering borders, the Old World themes of colonialism and imperialism that once dominated films from the Middle East have been supplanted by the subtleties of cultures in transition. Fatma isn't a screed against the Arab patriarchy so much as a lament for women and men who lack the strength or courage to transcend tradition. The three friends -- a French couple and a Moroccan youth -- whom André Téchiné follows around Tangier for three days in his ambitious, open-ended Far Away aren't schematic stand-ins for European hegemony or African oppression. Rather, Téchiné suggests, identity is more negotiable than it's ever been, although individual choice always has a political dimension.

In Dover Kosashvili's sly, devastating Late Marriage, it's the man who's in danger of being squashed by traditional family values. The Israeli bachelor Zaza ridicules, then defies, his Georgian parents' attempt to arrange his marriage. Zaza, like Fatma, doesn't succumb without a battle, which does little to change the fact that personal freedom is still hard to come by in the 21st century.

In The Inner Tour, Ra'anan Alexandrovch's faintly optimistic and intermittently fascinating documentary about a busload of Palestinian tourists "on holiday" in Israel, physical borders are fixed but psychological walls prove flexible. Confronted with the modern accouterments and comfy lifestyles of the Israelis, the Palestinian visitors come to redefine exactly what a fair shake means. We, and these filmmakers working in the Middle East, are left with the question, What's so radical about the desire for a better life?

Delbaran: Wednesday, May 1, 9:15 p.m., Castro; Thursday, May 2, 7 p.m., PFA

Fatma: Thursday, April 25, 9:15 p.m., AMC Kabuki; Sunday, April 28, 12:15 p.m., AMC Kabuki

Far Away: Thursday, April 25, 10 p.m., AMC Kabuki

Late Marriage: Wednesday, April 24, 9:15 p.m., AMC Kabuki; Thursday, April 25, 3 p.m., AMC Kabuki

The Inner Tour: Wednesday, April 24, 4 p.m., AMC Kabuki; Thursday, April 25, 10 a.m., AMC Kabuki