A Time for Drunken Horses Review
by Laura Clifford (lcliffor AT genuity DOT net)November 2nd, 2000
A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES
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Five Kurdish children struggle to survive by picking up odd jobs in a distant town while their widower father is away earning a living smuggling over the Iran/Iraqi border. Madi (Mehdi Ekhtiar-Dini) is the eldest son, but he's severely handicapped so twelve year old Ayoub (Ayoub Ahmadi) bears the brunt of this responsibility while Rojin (Rojin Younessi), the eldest sister, acts as mother to the brood. Ameneh (Ameneh Ekhtiar-Dini), the middle child, helps both elder siblings, but mostly takes care of Madi. Then their father is returned home, dead from the landmines which pepper the landscape in first time director Bahman Ghobadi's Cannes Camera d'Or winner, "A Time for Drunken Horses."
LAURA:
The biggest, freshest surge in international cinema has been coming from Iran in recent years via the works of Abbas Kiarostami ("A Taste of Cherry"), Majid Majidi ("The Color of Paradise") and father/daughter directors Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbaf ("Gabbeh," "Blackboards"). Many of these films focus on children. Ghobadi's "A Time for Drunken Horses" is like a more harshly realistic counterpart to Majidi's lush and fable-like "The Color of Paradise." They have in common children of a widowed father who care for a handicapped sibling who proves to be a hindrance to a marriage. Ghobadi's film is distinct in that his characters are Kurds, an ethnic minority of twenty million who live in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
When their father dies, their uncle declares Ayoub head of household because he's already burdened with eight children of his own. Madi's doctor tells Ayoub he needs an operation within four weeks to keep him alive for another 8 months. Ayoub begins the risky smuggling work that killed their father, where mules, laden with tires, are given alcohol so they won't feel the blistering cold crossing the snowy mountains over the Iraqi border. Ayoub's struggles maintain his family, but he's unsuccessful earning enough money for Madi's operation. (He does bring Madi the present of a picture. Ghobadi captures a brilliant image of the dwarfish Madi gazing upon a photograph of a body builder.)
Ayoub returns from one trip to find that Rajin has been betrothed by his uncle. Rajin explains to the distraught Ayoub, frustrated by his uncle's convenient return to head-of-household, that she's agreed to this because her new family will pay for Madi's operation, but on the wedding day, her new mother-in-law refuses to take Madi and offers a mule as recompense. Ayoub strikes out in a blizzard with Madi to sell the mule in Iraq to get his brother medical care.
Ghobadi returned to his Kurdistani village home, utilizing non-actors (and many relatives) to make this striking film. The four eldest children are all extremely natural in front of the camera, possessing strikingly expressive faces (Ameneh, in particular, has the face of an angel). These people have bleak lives with hardships unimaginable to western audiences. Something as basic as the procurement of an 'exercise book' (blank school notebook) is a treat to be savorred (we see this innocent merchandise and the truck which carried it impounded at a border patrol early in the film). However, the love among the siblings, which Ghobadi makes palpable, may seem rare to jaded western auds.
The film is shot in a realistic documentary style, yet contains images of stunning beauty, particularly when showing the harsh, wintery landscape. (When Ayoub and Madi are caught between two ambushes, they witness the other smugglers and their mules run down a snow covered hill into a valley, with the mules' former tire loads rolling willy-nilly alongside them.)
"A Time for Drunken Horses" projects love, spirit and hope. The ending, in particular, is simplicity itself in projecting triumph over extreme adversity.
A-
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