Fremont, directed by Babak Jalali, is not a film that can be easily confined to the framework of a social drama about migration. The film tells the story of Donya, an Afghan refugee woman who searches for meaning and human connection amidst the relentless repetition of daily life. Before the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, Donya worked as a translator for the U.S. Army, which led the Taliban to label her a traitor. For this reason, she fled Afghanistan and migrated to Fremont, California, where she now works in a small Chinese fortune cookie bakery. Fremont is a city where Afghan communities live alongside Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indian populations.
After arriving in Fremont, Donya suffers from insomnia and visits her psychotherapist for sleeping pills. Yet what truly alleviates her loneliness and nightmares is writing short phrases for the fortune cookies. Each cookie contains a slip of paper with an inspirational message, and this symbolic act sparks a sense of life and purpose within her. Seeking a meaningful connection and unexpected love, Donya writes her phone number on some of the fortune slips, setting up a meeting with an anonymous person.
By situating much of the story in the confined space of the Chinese bakery, the film not only introduces Donya’s workplace but also establishes an internal metaphor: a woman in search of meaning in her own life must now compose messages of hope and destiny for others—messages that perhaps she needs most herself. This interplay between literal and symbolic spaces is a hallmark of the film, echoing the cinematic world of Jim Jarmusch, with its subtle humor, long silences, and narratives that expand existentially within the mundane.
Fremont can be seen as an attempt to document the experiences of Afghan migrants in the United States after the Taliban’s return to power, yet Jalali’s approach is not social reportage; it is a poetic visual narrative. Combining formal precision with human sensitivity, he constructs a world where the political and the poetic, the threat of death and the desire for life, intertwine. The film’s minimalist aesthetic carries hidden anxiety and a yearning for liberation, revealed in silences, empty frames, and Donya’s contemplative gazes. Much of the film’s emotional weight is conveyed through Donya’s body language, subtle smiles, and quiet glances.
Donya’s psychotherapist is himself a lonely, depressed man, incapable of true healing. He is a therapist who turns to Jack London rather than Jung for guidance. Through this inversion of the therapist/patient dynamic, Jalali shows that both characters seek someone with whom they can emotionally unload. These scenes, with their bitter humor and extended silences, carry psychological weight far greater than words. Even among fellow Afghan migrants, Donya remains burdened by feelings of guilt and betrayal. She asks Suleiman if she deserves to experience love while her people continue to suffer back home. Suleiman responds that as long as she remembers the past, she must strive for love.
The Chinese bakery owner treats Donya well, even opposing her dismissal after discovering her phone number hidden inside a fortune cookie. He also maintains a friendly relationship with her American colleague, Juana. The coexistence of Chinese, Afghan, and American characters in one space illustrates a kind of cross-cultural solidarity, especially meaningful in a time of rising racism and xenophobia. Jalali has explored such borders and migrant experiences in his previous works, from Frontier Blues to Radio Dreams.
Fremont is a minimalist, calm, and understated film that emphasizes stillness and meaningful silences over dramatic conflicts. Its black-and-white cinematography, sparse mise-en-scène, and fixed, simple frames heighten this sense of calm. The film’s slow rhythm and significant silences reflect the wounded psyche and inner disorientation of the Afghan protagonist. In this sense, the film evokes Jim Jarmusch, where major events yield to simple, seemingly minor yet deeply impactful moments. Here, being a migrant is not merely a legal status but a philosophical mode of being—suspended between a lost past and an uncertain future. The black-and-white imagery lends a nostalgic, poetic quality: the expansive whites of skies and walls contrast with shadows, symbolizing the potential for freedom amid anxiety. Jalali often frames Donya alone, emphasizing her isolation and alienation in an environment that marginalizes her. Her solitude in the cold, empty apartment, especially during sleepless nights where neither television nor books fill the void, symbolizes inner unrest and disconnection—a suspension between past and future, an awakening that neither daily routine nor bright horizons can satisfy.
By maintaining distance and avoiding melodrama, focusing on silence, precise framing, and seemingly minor moments, Jalali reminds us that destiny and hope can emerge in a fortune cookie, a sleepless night, or a brief roadside conversation. He allows Donya’s anxieties and hopes to unfold gradually, layer by layer. The silences between dialogues create a space filled with unsaid words that carry tremendous meaning. In this way, the film approaches contemplative, meditative cinema, inviting viewers to pause and read meaning in images rather than explicit narration. Fremont, through its slow pacing, long silences, deliberate framing, and restrained performances, offers a minimalist meditation on the loneliness and hope of refugees.
Jalali’s mise-en-scène in Fremont is informed by themes of disorientation, solitude, and estrangement. The camera adopts Donya’s perspective, while her performance remains controlled, avoiding overt emotional reactions to events. The film portrays the anxiety, challenges, and dislocation inherent in migrant life, free from racial or ethnic bias. As Donya travels to another town to meet the person who received one of her fortune cookie messages, the narrative takes on a road movie quality, reminiscent of Jarmusch’s Paterson, where the journey and human encounters matter more than the destination. Her meeting with a roadside mechanic and their brief, sincere conversation constitutes her first real human connection. In the film’s slow, silent rhythm, this scene introduces a warmth contrasting the earlier cold frames, showing that hope can emerge not through grand gestures, but through simple human exchanges.
The final shot, where Donya stands under a ginkgo-like tree beside a dilapidated American car, watching a passing train, captures both her melancholy and her hopeful anticipation for love and a fresh start. Through these sequences and details, Jalali constructs a world in which being a migrant is not merely a political or social condition, but an existential, deeply human experience.