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95 MINUTES | KENDALL SQUARE Kayvan Mashayekh’s paean to the Middle Eastern oral storytelling tradition narrates the life of the 11th-century Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet from the perspective of a 12-year-old Iranian-American. Among sumptuous landscapes (shot on location in Uzbekistan), Khayyam ascends from obscurity to the royal court. Meanwhile, in present-day Houston, young Kamran is the "keeper," charged by his dying brother with remembering and passing on the legend. This earnest indie telegraphs both topical commentary on the dangers of blind faith and a universal message about cultural preservation. Unfortunately, the Persian sequences are wooden and choppy, inviting one to ponder why the legend would make a pre-teen skip soccer practice. This conundrum might have baffled even Khayyam.
BY MATTIAS FREY
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