Saturday, March 23, 2013

"A Time for Drunken Horses" an Iranian film

"A Time for Drunken Horses" an Iranian film, award winner at Cannes, Chicago and Santa Fe.

Once again, a film featuring children, yet hardly a childrens' film.......  A riveting, disturbing, heart-touching film about the life of Kurdish children living along the Iran-Iraq border.  Watch this with a coat on - even when we think we are cold, we certainly are unable to imagine life without electric or propane heat - also, have a tissue or hankie at hand.
The harshness of the winter in this film is hard for most Americans to fathom, yet the filming of this story at this time of year is amazing with stark reality.
We often hear of forced child labor, yet when children lose their parents what option to they have to survive?
The "drunken horses" are really mules, and they truly are drunk when they cross this pass while smuggling "tires and other such things" by their owners - just after their loads are in place, and just before they leave on their journey, they are given various alcoholic beverages to drink, probably to confuse them during such awful weather conditions.
This is a movie filled with awful things, yet LOVE is what makes the children go on - LOVE of their siblings, the things they do to keep going.
As my husband stated - "this was NOT light and fuzzy", yet it was an incredible movie with such powerful statements of different cultures that Americans really do not understand. 

Usually I say "Enjoy" light-heartedly, this is one that "Enjoy" takes on a different meaning, I do hope that you will consider watching this.

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