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(2000 Iran)
***1/2 of ****
Rated: not rated, but call it a PG
Length: 80 minutes
Writer & Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Cast:
Ayoub Ahmadi: Ayoub
Rojin Younessi: Rojin
Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini: Ameneh
Synopsis:
In an Iranian Kurdish village bordering Iraq, the people work to get by. It is winter in this mountainous region, and the available work consists of simple labor and smuggling used truck tires into Iraq. A boy, his sister, and their sick youngest brother are orphaned when their smuggling father steps on a land mine. The youngest brother will die soon with out an operation from an Iraqi doctor, but the kids don't have the money to pay for it. Ayoub, 12 years old, begins working hard to save enough money, but it isn't going well.
Review:
The Writer & Director, Ghobadi, wrote this story based on people he knew during his thirty years in the area. This film was shot on location in the real villages with the real people living their lives in a rugged mountainous region covered in snow. The ease and proficiency with which these people, many of who are children, were used as beasts of burden would be unsettling in America, but in the harsh reality of the remote mountains, it is just part of life. Much of the filming needs no staging because the director intended to capture real life. The double standards in this society leave the children with nobody to trust but other children while the adults make their traditional way with their lives. There is less violence, and stronger values in this film than you will see in most Hollywood products. The future of the 10 year old girl seems like a good thing with these circumstances. The bonds and relationships between characters are pretty strong when you consider this film is only 80 minutes long. The people, scenery, and even the mules make for images of struggle in a hard life. PETA will not like parts of this film. And if you think about it, there were a lot of tires shown in the film. I wonder on which side of the border they are now? A film worth seeing if you get the chance.