He is unable to go through with the act, however, and is stopped by his cellmate, who in the course of fighting with Reza causes the medicine bottle to break and cut open his arm.

In the meantime, the warden is informed that Reza has escaped, and seeing this as a personal blemish on his record, pursues the criminal to the border village.

In the course of this, he becomes something of a hero in the eyes of the villagers, who misinterpret his attempts to track down his false passport as his visiting the homes of poor people and giving them charity.

These actions continue to draw the praise of the villagers, convincing those who have abandoned faith in their religion to come to the mosque once again to hear the sermons of Reza Marmoulak, most of which are derived from his brief contact with the cleric in the prison's hospital.

At the end of the film, Reza is finally tracked down by the warden, and on the night of a religious celebration at the mosque, he is arrested, without the villagers noticing.

He hands over his robes to a small boy who had watched him over the course of the entire film, possibly the only person in the village who had guessed his identity all along, and goes peacefully with the warden and the police officer back to the prison in Tehran.

The police officer who had come to arrest him was the same one who has told him in the beginning that he needed “a diet for his mind.” This film was released 2 months after production was complete.