This film is about the lose of childhood, a similar theme that is very common among many other Kurdish films, including Karzan Kardozi's I Want to Live (2015), and Yilmaz Gunye's The Wall (1983). These three films reflect the reality of the Kurdish people living under oppression in countries of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
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LeRoyMarko12 January 2001Beautiful movie about the Kurdish people, living in the mountains separating Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Strong performances by the children in this movie. Look at Amaneh's eyes and tell me that you don't see the desperation. Another film in the tradition of Gabbeh and The Children of Heaven. Simple but poignant.
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Master Thespian19 August 2002In his most recent film, "A Time for Drunken Horses," Director Bahman Ghobadi depicts the hardship of life in the Kurdish region straddling the border between Iran and Iraq.
At the beginning of the film, a truck full of children makes its way through the snowy Iranian mountains. The large group of children sing in Arabic about how the winding road makes them older. You get the sense that they don't really know what they are singing about, but the song is indicative of how many of these children will be thrust into the realities of adulthood with little warning and even less preparation.
A young Kurd, Ayoub, must avert government brutality and raise the money to pay for an operation for his ailing younger brother.
Their father has just been killed by authorities and the teen must work to provide for the rest of the family. The only way he can raise the money is by smuggling goods across the border from Iraq to Iran, risking extremely cold temperatures, land mines and military raids.
Much to his credit, Ghobadi uses locals instead of professional actors throughout the film. The children who portray the three major characters (Ayoub, his sister Amaneh and their young, disabled brother Madi) give brilliant, fresh performances. Ayoub and Amaneh are convincing as a brother and sister attempting to hold their family together.
These children shed real tears. In a particularly impressive moment, Ayoub wrestles to move a drunken mule who won't budge as troops with rifles converge on his convoy. The power of his fear and frustration lights up the screen.
By the same token, some of the adult actors are unprofessional and wooden. Minor characters, like Ayoub's uncle, are painful to watch as they attempt to act. But thankfully these characters are periphery.
As an artistic film coming from the Middle East, one might not expect much from the technical aspects of the film. The cinematography, however, rivals some of the slickest Hollywood productions. The sweeping ice-blue snow that lines the mountains in the film provides a stark contrast with the characters' bright costumes, particularly Madi's trademark, tiny yellow raincoat.
The textured sound design adds depth to the picture. The rich, crisp amplification of even the tiniest sounds are an example of the film's attention to detail. From the buttoning of a coat to the smacking of lips, small sounds stand out and give the film an intimate feel.
The film derives its title from the mules that are given alcohol so they'll traverse the snowy terrain.
At the end of the film, when Ayoub is trying to get Madi across the border, the drunken mules turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
And the ambiguous final shot will make you cringe.
Briskly paced, the film unearths beauty in simplicity. Ghobadi clearly is a talented director, and in this film about growing up too fast he paints a beautiful, sad picture. -
I wasn't sure where this movie was going for the first 15 minutes, but before long I was drawn into the story like the rest of the audience. This could be considered in the "Indy" film class, but whatever rough edges it might have only add to the impact of the story. Reason tells me it was fiction, but I really had the feeling we were there, or at least that one of the characters was filming the whole thing with a handicam.
The filmmaker did what he set out to do: He make a film that makes us care about some of his people. The conditions these people struggle under are appalling, and are made all the more difficult by politics. My girlfriend and I left the theatre wondering where we could find out more about these people and what can be done for them.
The young actors, especially Madi, are as good as - and perhaps better than - any $20 million Hollywood superstar. This is Film, not a Hollywood formula flick, and the story is worth seeing, however bleak it may seem at times. -
Philby-325 August 2001Kurdistan isn't in your atlas, but it exists, the land of a people ignored by the post-Ottoman empire boundary makers and now living in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-western Iran. This movie is set in a mountainous part of the Iraq-Iran border where the local Kurds eke out a living smuggling tea and tractor tyres by mule train from Iran into Iraq. (The return cargo seems to be school exercise books what the mullahs of Iran have got against those I cannot imagine). No doubt they (the Iranian Kurds) are not on President Bush's Christmas card list, but their main customers are likely to be Kurds on the Iraqi side. The main problem though is not the authorities but bandits, eager to knock off the smuggler's loads.
The hero here is 12 year old Ayoub, who has to follow in his father's footsteps after the death of his father on a smuggling trip. As Dad stepped on a landmine this is a dangerous undertaking but Ayoub is determined to earn enough money for a operation to prolong the life (if only for a few months) of his severely crippled and retarded older brother. This sounds like blatant melodramatic manipulation, and it is, but it works.
Why does it work? There's the cinemaphotography, so perfectly lit and composed you might as well be standing there. There is excellent use of hand-held cameras, especially on the trail sequences. None of the actors is professional and the whole thing has a documentary air. Above all, the emotional bonds between the characters ring true. Perhaps when you have next to nothing your family becomes all-important, though the kinship bonds here seen to weaken quickly outside the immediate family circle. Kurdistan is a tough place and people are hard, and there's not much community support for the weak and frail. The young are expected to shape up fast, or fall by the wayside. As for the horses, well, animal rights activists would be run out of town.
Yet there is a stark beauty about the film that makes it hard to dismiss the slow pace grows on you. Ayoub may be going to grow up as just another tough, ignorant, sexist tribesman, but we glimpse here (he is going to school) that he might do better. This is a remarkable and different film and a very good antidote to the recent stream of romantic comedies. -
jowang14 September 2001Iranians really know how to make unique movies without being polluted by the capitalistic dominating western cinima. The respectable Abbas Kiarostami has opened the eyes of the world cinima viewers.And now Bahman Ghobadi follows by his outstanding "Time for the drunken horse". It's low budget, simple story, amateur actors, real persons...and it's a great cinema. There're a lot for the western film industry to learn from the iranian films.
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valadas3 July 2005The documentary style of this movie doesn't put us away from the drama of life in this Kurdish village in Iranian soil but on the border with Irak. People there make a living by smuggling goods over the border subject to the constant risk of mines and ambushes. This involves children as well as adults. Life is particularly hard for children who have also to work for a living either wrapping up objects in the towns or carrying heavy packages on their shoulder or conducting mules carrying them across the border in the middle of the harshest weather conditions and a hostile landscape, to be sold on the other side. This is also the story of a family of orphan children, one of them being a crippled boy whose siblings treat with extreme care and tenderness, trying to earn money enough to take him to Irak to be operated otherwise he'll die soon. The image style is simple and unadorned. The images speak indeed for themselves. This story tells us not only how people live in that region of the globe, showing their customs and culture, but also how poverty and hardness cannot untie there the bonds of love in the bosom of the family. Maybe something we could learn in our western societies.
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mohaas10 October 2000This is one of the most powerful and deeply affecting films I have seen. Using non-professional actors from the region, Ghobadi is able to lay bare the devastating hardships of life in Kurdistan on the Iran-Iraq border. The children are what make this film, though. In particular, Madi, the handicapped brother, has an incredibly expressive face which makes his plight all the more affecting. Also, the 12 year old head of the family, Ayoub, shows his love and dedication to his family of brother and sisters in each scene.
Powerful film and yet another indication that some of the world's best films are coming out of Iran these days. -
This is a seriously depressing movie. I had to stop the film half a dozen times and do something else, because it was so grim. The family loses mother, then father than oldest daughter. Oldest son Ayoub (maybe 14) tries to carry on looking after the family. Others do their best to help, but everyone is so poor there is not much anyone can do. Everyone has to work so hard for so little wage. On top of this they have a crippled brother, Madi, who can barely walk, and is only about half normal height. He needs an operation, but even if he gets it he will die in a year. Soldiers attack. Employers refuse to pay. Rescuers renege. The whole film gives a feeling of impending doom to innocents. Then suddenly the movie ends without resolving anything, as though the ending had been trimmed off. Some exotic script flows by for a minute, without subtitles. Perhaps that explains what happens.
Often in movies when terrible things happen to people, I don't care. I have developed no connection with the characters or I don't like them. In this movie, I cared so much about the characters it hurt. It grabs your emotions, but without the usual corny tricks.
There is a scene with animal cruelty I do not think was simulated where they slapped and kicked mules. The whipping I think was simulated.
The hardship is not supernatural or overstated. It feels like a realistic portrayal of being a child truck tire smuggler in Iran-Iraq.
This is not an enjoyable movie, but it is a good movie. -
This film is a masterpiece in Iranian cinema. Its rare for other films to convey as much emotion as this one did, yet maintaining a very dramatic and professional vibe. Ghobadi's work as an assistant truly paid off and this film is undoubtebly in my top 10 Iranian films of all time. a masterpiece.
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renelsonantonius22 April 2002Just like the other Iranian films that I've seen---Jafar Panahi's "White Balloon," Majid Majidi's "Children of Heaven," Abbas Kiarostami's "Where Is My Friend's Home?" and Ebrahim Forouzesh's "The Key"---Bahman Gobadi's "Zamani baraye masti ashba" also has children as the central characters.But whereas the children in Panahi's, Majidi's, Kiarostami's and Forouzesh's films appear to struggle with "simple" problems (gold fish, a pair of shoes, a friend's lost notebook and a house key), those in Gobadi's film deal with problems that take on a large-scale significance:how to keep one's body and soul together amid the escalating war between two Muslim countries, the protagonists being literally situated in the middle.
As his first full-length feature, Gobadi aims, as he tells us in the prologue, to make the viewers aware of the plight of the people of Kurdistan, who are unjustly marginalized and neglected, their situation becoming all the more worst as the village stands on the border between the warring Iran and Iraq (it's the time of the Gulf War).As I've already suggested, the focus here is particularly on the orphaned Kurdish siblings, headed by the affectionate and vulnerable Ayoub.To support his brothers and sisters, and most specially the ailing Madi, who needs to be operated in Iraq, Ayoub works for a group of smugglers who uses children in transporting illegally-obtained goods to Iraq.
The opening scene of a pressure-filled and hurriedly-done packing of smuggled products, presented with the use of a hand-held camera and undiluted colors (so that it has the look and feel of a documentary), and the shots of the snow-covered mountain along which the group of adults and children carry their goods, in a manner that is threatening rather than awe-inspiring, make it clear that the road ahead for the young protagonists won't be a smooth one, that life won't be a piece of cake, as should be proper for them, being tender and innocent as they are.
Though Gobadi chooses to present the story objectively, that is, in a manner where sympathy and hate won't be readily expressed to the persons concerned, being aware of the fact that theirs is a life being largely conditioned by the circumstances, I still think that the film belongs to the children, most specially to Ayoub.
It's hard not to admire Ayoub's selfless devotion to his siblings, even if it means having to be used callously by a group of adult smugglers (one of them is an uncle), having to endure the coldness, the thick blanket of snow and the steepness of the mountains as they transport the goods using "drunken horses" (hence, the title) and having to "sacrifice" an elder sister to an arranged marriage in the hope of having Madi operated, courtesy of the groom's family (which turns out to be a false hope).
One would think that such kind of fate is too much for a young child, but like the above-mentioned Iranian films, "Zamani baraye masti ashba" ends with the image of a child quietly enjoying a moment of triumph.What will become of him (or her) from thereon? Whatever, what counts for the time being is the simple joy brought about by a simple victory. -
Just wonderful... When I watched this movie, I was taken to the memoirs of my childhood in my village. I am a Kurd from the eastern parts of Turkey. Though Kurds have been separated between four different countries, all their lives are identical. It is the same sort of difficulties they experience. The same ill treatment, the same struggle, even for children. I saw all those things in the movie in my childhood around me. The thing with this movie is that, all those things are true. In fact it is a story out of thousand stories. Every Kurd child has such a story to be filmed in those regions. The players, though all amateurs were perfect. Ayoub, Amine, Rojine were wonderful in acting. There was not a particular story but that is the way it should be, as I told you, each child there has such a story in his life time. So I was proud as a Kurd to have seen this movie. It deserves the awards it has obtained, and now I am looking forward to seeing another movie by Ghobadi.
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I expected a lot more from this movie after reading of its film festival prizes. It did not deliver. The scenes of harsh village life near the Iraq border of Kurdish Iran are unforgettable, but I was bothered by the freak-show aspect of the portrayal of suffering of a terminally ill dwarf, and the inability of most of the actors to be convincing. It seemed to have been shot with no retakes without professional actors. The ending was particularly disappointing;it seemed that they just ran out of film or that the film broke. (Perhaps it did; I don't recall any credits being shown at the end.) This is not in the same league as another Iranian film issued recently, "The Color of Paradise". See that one instead.
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katydid481925 September 2004First off, A Time For Drunken Horses is a movie that I enjoyed, but I would not call it a good movie. Shot in the documentary style, it feels more like a documentary than a fictionalized film. It portrays the hardships of the Kurdish people and one family as they try to survive in a world that the American viewers have no concept of. A film generally does tell of hardships such as these but the difference between A Time For Drunken Horses and other films is that the others create a story that makes its subject matter more understandable. That's the point of a story; to explain things we can't know otherwise.
Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, the shots are set up with expertise and the snowy landscapes are very impressive. Visually, this film is a masterpiece with its style and cinematography. Ghodabi's actors, all amateurs, don't display the same raw talent as their director but will suffice and must be forgiven, as they are only amateurs playing themselves. Perhaps the subtitles make it harder to gauge their abilities but no matter what, their facial expressions don't amount to enough to garner the emotions that the scene requires.
Emotions, though, are not in short supply. This situations here become so extreme and never redeeming that it is hard not to view the whole film as a ploy to garner cheap tears from its viewers. It's analogous to American directors who add unnecessary nudity to their films just to get the few extra dollars from the demographic that pays just to see Angelina Jolie naked, not caring what the movie is actually about. There comes a point in A Time For Drunken Horses that you have to ask what the point is. Yes, this is educational for those of us who don't live like this but what about those that do? Imagine this: a car wreck, a bad one with blood, death, and visible pain. That is what this movie is similar to. An event that you see every day but don't directly relate to. It's horrible and you know it, so why watch a movie about it. Would you want to watch a car wreck happen for eighty minutes? Where's the redemption? There is nothing to be gained from watching this. There's nothing that Ghodadi says with his film that the evening news doesn't.
I see hundreds of films a year. I find that people often feel required to say that they enjoyed a foreign film. Perhaps they don't want to seem ignorant about what they are watching. For example, in Ebert's review he accuses those who don't like this movie of lacking in empathy. A well made foreign film has a great chance to make it to the American film market but that doesn't mean that it is a good movie. Just because a book is grammatically correct and follows the required structure to a T does not mean it is enjoyable. It's all about content and the conviction the writer has in what they are saying. With A Time For Drunken Horses, I felt more like I was watching an educational piece the History Channel had produced more than a story someone had put their blood and tears into. I would say it is a good movie but I probably would not recommend this. I think A Time For Drunken Horses has more political message than heartbreaking conviction. **/***** -
lou-501 November 2000"Time of Drunken Horses" is an uncompromising film about love and perseverance. It closely resembles the Iranian film, "Color of Paradise", and the Chinese "Not One Less" in its simplicity and its unrelenting message as well as using skilled child and adult actors in real-life settings. Filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi reminds us up front that we in the West don't understand the plight of the Kurdish refugees, numbering 20 million in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. "Time of Drunken Horses" is both an important lesson as well as a powerful homage to the suffering Kurdish people. To its credit, the film does depict the suffering as sympathy but rather as heroic and noble. When children have to fight for work in the marketplace, usually carrying heavy contraband on their backs, or when they have to trudge through deep snow to return to their village, or when they sing childhood songs about how they are aging so fast, there is a surprising energy and enthusiasm. The film takes its viewpoint from three children - a teenage boy, Ayoub, placed in charge of a disintegrating family, his younger sister, Amaneh, and the crippled and sick brother, Madi. The father has died in a landmine accident and the step-mother is away leaving the children in the hands of an already burdened uncle with eight children of his own. Madi needs an operation to extend his life another 7 or 8 months; otherwise, he will died soon. The love extended to this midget child is remarkable from the brother and sisters (one even accepts marriage in exchange for obtaining the needed operation) to the kindly doctor who comes regularly to give injections. That is the one irony that this film plainly wants to get across. We are blest with modern medicine is at our fingertips and yet we can decide to withhold care if it appears to be futile. How, then, can we understand, in a society in which there is so little, the determination of one boy to extend the live of someone he truly loves when the odds are overwhelmingly against him. The final scene merely strengthens the powerful message of "Time of Drunken Horses" as the boy and his crippled brother valiantly march off in the snow to a future we know will not be pleasant.
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awmurshedkar30 November 2011A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES – 9.8/10
Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Writer:Bahman Ghobadi
Another Iranian classic: a tale of love and unimaginable suffering, a tale so surreal that is hard to come to terms with the unfair nature of life and the stoic mannerism in which it is dealt with. When a director's first film wins Camera d'Or at Cannes, there is a good reason why you need to see it.
The film follows the standard Iranian formula of children being the central protagonists and driving force in the film. One might feel this is exploitation, and may be to some extent it is, but placing children in situations that they face in reality does not amount to tear jerking melodrama. The film is rather brute and unflinching in its approach. It quickly moves from character to story and continues to enhance both as it proceeds. Cinéma vérité, the style which has come to define Iranian cinema over the course of the last few decades once again brings to light the documentary treatment necessary for such a subject that would otherwise classify as queasy.
Border crossing and smuggling on the Kurdish-Iraqi-Iranian border, the populace suffering at the hands of the military appear in several other films. While in this case, the film deals with the dilemma of Ayoub, played by Ayoub Ahmadi, who has to find a way to garner the money necessary for his ailing spasticated brother Madi, convincingly portrayed by Madi Ekhtiar-dini, the backdrop nevertheless speaks of political turmoil affecting lives of innocent civilians on day to day basis. The indescribable state of people living in harsh conditions are best put forth by an objective narrative, without any attempts to milk the situation in an attempt to tug at the emotional chords of the viewers.
A Time for Drunken Horses is a must see, an indispensable gem to the list of many from Iranian directors. While it is not suited for the audience looking for a pop corn film, nor is it meant to appease or please, it does have moments that will stay with you. While I can hardly imagine why any mass audience would like to see stark realities, especially ones they wish and are thankful to have escaped, the film is an experience, one that makes it essential viewing. -
dangabriel7 June 2012It's so real it could be a documentary. One day, some five years ago, a pubescent girl in Montreal sued the government for not covering the cost of her breast implants. She said, that was indispensable for her health and well-being. I'd say, people like this should take a six months fact- finding mission to Kurdistan, where this film was shot, and see how life is. How children work and how they manage to live, even smile and sing sometimes. The movie starts strongly, never lets go and moves you to the deepest. If you don't shed a tear, unlikely, you'll still be haunted. The unprofessional children's acting is phenomenal, which shows again that sometimes non-actors give stronger performances (particularly Amaneh and Madi) The hand-held camera takes are absorbing and the urgency is vivid. The cultural differences are manifest, and this is a study of humanity in a rough and cruel setting. The film should be mandatory viewing to blase kids who feel miserable for not getting for free the last video game console. Camera d'or at Cannes, best first feature of director Bahman Ghobadi.
© Dan Gabriel 2012 -
kurdishfilmreview12 January 2017This is a Kurdish film. That does not just mean that it is a film in the Kurdish language or one set in Kurdistan, it also means that it is Kurdish by genre.
Children or orphans, child labor, war or the result of a war, missing or sick persons, remote area, difficult terrain, smuggling, poverty... If you think you've seen this before, you probably have, in another film.
This is not the fault of this film, as it is one of the earliest ones, but when everyone (including this director) started reusing these themes, this film didn't age well. There are just too many films about the same topics, ones that don't go too deep into the issues beyond presenting them to the audience.
This film is a snapshot in the life of some children who try to save their sick sibling.
The children have to become adults much earlier than they should, needing to quit school, be responsible, get married or work at an age when they should be children. This film is shot in a cinéma verité style, almost like a Handicam documentary and you really feel like you are there.
Some have commented on the acting, feeling that it is unprofessional, while others said that it was very convincing because the actors weren't really acting. I'm siding with the latter, even though I think both sides are describing the same thing. Some people expect to see acting and are unconvinced by people being or playing themselves.
I have several problems with this film. For one, as a story, it lacks an ending. It's not ambiguous, it's just abrupt. The film doesn't end, it just stops.
Secondly, this film also doesn't go deeper into the issues. It presents them as a list of problems Kurds have to endure, but it just goes from one item to the next, offering no cause, commentary or solution.
For example, the director, Ghobadi, could've shown how circle is perpetuated. Children have to choose between working to survive or going to school. This leaves the population uneducated, able only to do menial work, live in poverty and struggle to take care of their own children, who themselves have to choose between working to help their parents and siblings or go to school.
The director could've shown another angle, how war, poverty and lack of health care have changed the shape of the family in some parts of Kurdistan where the new nuclear family is the siblings alone taking care of each other.
He could've shown us how the suffering of these children is the fault of their parents who decided to have these children at a terrible time, after the destructive Iran-Iraq war and during the first Gulf War. These children were born as Kurds at a time when Iran and Iraq hated each other, with Kurds in the middle and everyone under embargo.
Ghobadi could've shown us the cause, shown us how this is perpetuated or shown us a solution or a glimmer of hope.
You begin to ask questions. Why did the father not marry again to have a stepmother for these children? After decades of war and genocide, the population of Kurdistan is unbalanced, with so many widows and unmarried women. Marriage in such difficult times is not about love, weddings or childbearing, but about economics and survival. This man could not find one widow to help raise his children? That is hard to believe.
In real life, broken systems bring broken and imperfect solutions. The broken solution to child poverty is child labor. The solution to lack of jobs is the grey/black markets. The solution to losing a wife is to find one's children a stepmother. The director has deliberately cut out that option to give us a story that is sadder. Between realism and sadness, the director opted for the latter. The solution to childlessness is adoption. But that is cut out too.
These are failings in this film. The director chose to give us something that would sell better because it's sadder rather than something more realistic.
Finally, even as I give this film 7/10, I wonder what the point of this film is. As a movie, it's not that entertaining. As a documentary-like film, it's not that realistic, aiming clearly to deliver the saddest story possible, almost following a checklist (orphan siblings of a sick child have to engage in child labor and sell their sister as a child bride to pay for their brother's life-saving surgery. Is that not contrived?). It's not a documentary, so it does not propose solutions, give us causes or a deeper look.
So what does this film do? It is, in a way, misery snuff, meant to elicit a sad response from the viewer. It does that job well with incredible focus, but at the cost of overall film quality.
There is little focus on Kurdish culture, while Kurdish music, perhaps the most important thing in Kurdish society, plays almost no part. This is due to the filming style - adding a cinematic score would've clashed with the look the director was aiming for.
I called this film the quintessential Kurdish film because more and more films follow this template - produced in 2000, Kurdish cinema has still not advanced one inch. We get to choose between tragedies and fairy tales. This one is a tragedy, Bekas a fairy tale.
My criticism is harsh for a film I give 7, because it has to be. Giving this film 10/10 does no one any favor.
Positives: acting, cinematography, realism (somewhat), casting, location Negatives: lack of story, ending, depth, message; lack of music/score. -
kevangelisti22 April 2001You will not forget the moving characters in this film. According to what I know from having lived in a middle eastern village, this is an accurate portrayal of the hardships of life in this area. You will want to take the children home with you and get Madi his operation!
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Icily beautiful, moving, and disturbing.
You're plunged into urgent situations and are on your own to get your bearings. You're but a foreigner hanging onto subtitles that link you to a world not your own. How much is understood can only be partial. But the bigger picture comes across all the same.
The closeups of the children in this film move and shake, and longshots of the landscape they inhabit are powerful and unforgettable. Neorealism is alive and well. -
Zoooma3 June 2014A beautiful film. The first time director won an award at Canne for his effort -- the judges were quite impressed. So am I. It shows an interesting slice of life on the Iranian border with Iraq in the Kurdistan region. The actors are amateurs who are able to give the most warm and genuine performances as the characters in this situation. There's no message to take away that war is wrong or anything like that. It's just a slice of life. There actually isn't much of a message other than you gotta do for your family what you gotta do. It's truly eye-opening the lengths that people will go to in order to simply survive. We complain about the most idiotic things in our world with Coca Cola and college and pot and beer and gas stations and pizza delivery and ipods and laptops and torrenting. We are schmucks. Look at these people and feel blessed. Maybe look at these people and wonder how you might be able to help. There might not be a lot that one can do, but there's got to be something. If not then just be aware. This movie can at least do that, show us how life is somewhere we may never go or ever even find out about.
8.6 / 10 stars
--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener -
oanabanana19 December 2020I am very interested in Iranian cinema and I thought that this film would a good experience to have in trying to extend my knowledge of the country's productions. However, I don't find this film worthy of a Cannes prize, nor of a recommendation to a friend.
The premise of the story is a really promising one, but the director/writer is much too hung up on just zooming on the characters and the story, none of which are well-developed. The film would've benefited a lot if the director would've wrote less dialogue and let the people play themselves and show us how this story could be part of their lives. The way it is constructed, it feels like a rat race to the dramatic end. Because of superfluous interaction between the characters and unnecessary tension all film long, we can't get a real grasp of this presumed slice of life. The film feels like a TV adaptation of a real-life story that is to be watched at lunchtime. I am a bit disappointed to see that most reviews are extremely positive. The film really doesn't deserve much praise and we shouldn't confuse feeling empathy towards virtual people that actually go through similar experiences with thinking that the film IS these experiences.
A time for drunken horses is just rushed depiction of a slice of life that would've deserved better expression. -
EdF13525 May 2001Iran must have a very strong storytelling tradition, because I've seen about 7 movies from there in the last year and (with the exception of The Wind Will Carry Us), they've all been amazing. Next to the White Balloon this one was my favorite. Months after seeing it I still feel awful about complaining about traffic or any of the "problems" in my life when I think of the things a 12 year old Ayoub had to deal with (my big problem when I was 12, my mom threatening to throw my baseball cards away, doesn't quite compare...). It's so rare to see such a display of devotion, perseverance, maturity that doesn't look totally contrived. Add to that that these were all amateur actors and you end up with something from the heart that has a lot of depth. 9/10
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tim-764-29185623 March 2012When your own, Western, cosseted and safe children start moaning about not having the latest 'must-have', play them this. They'll soon shut up, I promise!
From the moment I first watched this enigmatically titled film on TV many years ago, I knew it was to become an absolute favourite of mine. Now, at last, I've got it on DVD and can watch it again (& again).
There's something very resolutely matter-of-fact in these people's harshness and the extents to which they have to go to address them. It seems ironic - and a bit ridiculous here in the West, where we like a a drink or two, that liquor is not drunk by people, but force fed to the pack mules and horses to numb them enough to make dangerous black-market trips over the snowbound mountain and into Iraq.
The main characters are the children, totally without whimsy or sentiment that simply try and make do without parents. That this includes a severely handicapped boy who not only needs daily medication but an operation to prolong his life - and their inventive means to try and fund that is bound to fire our emotions and one admires with both pride and pity.
This is definitely one of those very rare (& indeed, it is rare, i.e difficult to see/get hold of) that WILL affect you and probably far more than you'd dare realise. Ten out of 10. -
damask7 November 2001This is one of the most astounding movies I have ever seen! I knew nothing at all about the movie before I went to see it, other than that it was Kurdish and "very good". So at first I thought it was a documentary, so well acted was it by the young, unprofessional cast. No doubt this impression was enforced by much hand-held camera footage: the scenes of Kurdish smugglers fighting on the Iran/Iraq border just HAD to be real!
Visually it is stunning in an horrific, bleak & beautiful sort of way. I was reminded in parts of certain aspects of the vision of Werner Herzog, in regard to the long treks through vistas of unending Snow & Rock. I literally started to shiver sitting there in the cinema!
The plight of the brave Kurdish children is heart-rending and at the same time heartening; their great strength and inherent nobility gob-smacked this old Western decadent! It is still hard to sift the reality of their experiences from the fiction of the story as portrayed in this movie. None of the cast are professional actors, I gather, by the fact that they all used their real names.
And there aint no trite and "Disney" conclusion to this provoking visit to an inverted Shangri-La: this movie bites!
Do yourself a favour: see it!