Hanoi comes across almost picture-perfect in director Tran Anh Hung's beautiful, elegiac tale about the lives and loves of three Vietnamese sisters. A mood characteristic of Hung's films is set early on with the vivid sounds of birds, insects and water and the way the lighting enhances the subtle use of color. They all combine to gem-like effect here.

Nogreh is a young Afghani woman living with her father and her sister-in-law, Leylomah, whose husband, Akhtar, is missing. Beyond the issue of Akhtar, Leylomah is most concerned with how to feed her baby. She cannot provide milk for her baby as her own hunger is preventing her from lactating. Nogreh, however, aspires toward a life in a western styled democracy. Although the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, traditional forces are still active in the country. Nogreh often displays signs of rebellion, such as wearing a pair of white pumps instead of the traditional slipper beneath her burqa. But mostly, Nogreh wants to be educated. Without her father's knowledge, Nogreh is attending a secular girls school. Ultimately, she wants to become President of Afghanistan. With the help of a Pakistani refugee who likes her as a woman, Nogreh tries to understand exactly what forces led to current world leaders being elected, those forces which she wants to emulate.

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

沙漠里一所小学拥有的唯一一个水缸被打破了，于是喝水成了迫在眉睫的问题。为了解决水缸问题，校长使用了许多办法。先是说服一个家长来修理，却因为修理材料要用到鸡蛋而搁浅，原因是家家都舍不得贡献出鸡蛋。终于把鸡蛋问题解决后，修好的水缸很快又出现了裂缝。无奈之下，校长把求助的目光投向了政府，等待政府伸出援手是一个漫长的过程，在缺乏水喝的时间里，有学生跑到远处的小河解渴，事故发生了，有个学生不小心掉到水里。在这种情况下，村里一个泼辣的妇女发起了募捐活动，终于凑够了买水缸的钱。大家把钱交给了妇女的侄子到城里买水缸，然而侄子拿了钱，迟迟未归。村里顿时谣言四起，怀疑有人贪污吞钱。终于，侄子把水缸背回来了，沙漠里又回复了平静。

The story revolves around a blind boy named Mohammed who is released from his special school in Tehran for summer vacation. His father, shamed and burdened by Mohammed's blindness, arrives late to pick him up and then tries to convince the headmaster to keep Mohammed over the summer. The headmaster refuses, so Mohammed's father eventually takes him home.

在阿富汗那片土地上，灾难还远未结束，人们依旧生活在贫困和饥荒之中，可是他们如同你我一样，渴望生活，热爱生活。
在那漫长的路途中，作者学会了热爱那些褐色的看似贫瘠的沟壑，热爱那些仿佛永远也走不出去的道道深梁与沉默山丘，因为那里的人们，用他们的生活，他们的灾难和他们的欢乐，教会了作者热爱他们那坚忍的世界和作者自己的世界。