Rating: 
Summary: Having a wonderful time with time
Review: The reviewer Doug Anderson nails this movie when he says: "Most films work by speeding things up and meeting expectations but Kiorastami works by slowing things down and subverting expectations." In fact, time itself is as much the subject of this film as is the plot. Time in The Wind Will Carry Us is "poem" time, with an intense focus on the ambiguity of the situation that makes time pool, and with its thematic repetitions (example: the frequent, frantic (and hilarious) rush to the hillside which is the only place in the village where a cell phone can be answered). Poems seduce us into standing still in real time to receive their illumination, and Kiorastami stands us still inside the beautiful visual for his purposes. And a poem itself takes us to the heart of the movie's human considerations: the crew member who is the film's central figure descends into the pitch black cellar of a local farmer, and to the milking of a cow in the dark, we hear the poem of the same name as the film, by the Iranian woman poet Forough Farrokhzaad. Caution! If you're tuned in to the poem, this scene may make you weep! It is a miracle in itself that I found Kiorastami's movie in a local Blockbusters in a small Hudson River Valley town! I want to see all his films. Such truths about our human condition! The director's a master.
Rating:
Summary: Having a wonderful time with time
Review: The reviewer Doug Anderson nails this movie when he says: "Most films work by speeding things up and meeting expectations but Kiorastami works by slowing things down and subverting expectations." In fact, time itself is as much the subject of this film as is the plot. Time in The Wind Will Carry Us is "poem" time, with an intense focus on the ambiguity of the situation that makes time pool, and with its thematic repetitions (example: the frequent, frantic (and hilarious) rush to the hillside which is the only place in the village where a cell phone can be answered). Poems seduce us into standing still in real time to receive their illumination, and Kiorastami stands us still inside the beautiful visual for his purposes. And a poem itself takes us to the heart of the movie's human considerations: the crew member who is the film's central figure descends into the pitch black cellar of a local farmer, and to the milking of a cow in the dark, we hear the poem of the same name as the film, by the Iranian woman poet Forough Farrokhzaad. Caution! If you're tuned in to the poem, this scene may make you weep! It is a miracle in itself that I found Kiorastami's movie in a local Blockbusters in a small Hudson River Valley town! I want to see all his films. Such truths about our human condition! The director's a master.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark Wind Whispering
Review: This film is called BAD MA RA KHAHAD BORD in Iran. Abbas Kiarostami is the director, writer, producer, and editor of the film. He functions as both innovator and diplomat in those capacities. He has directed 37 films, and has been "discovered" by the West since 1990. In 1997, his film, TASTE OF CHERRY, won the Palm d'Or at Cannes. Presently he is a professor, and he lives in Paris.
As director he is creative and rogue. He breaks away from conventional narrative, and usually works without a script. He improvises, composes, matches dialogue to the landscape, and then later edits all of it. This gives many of his films, including this one, a documentary feel. He utilizes mostly non-actors and a small crew. He does not seem concerned about the girdle of genre or the cleats of convention. He creates something else in cinema, something "new".
He cast the landscape as a character. Working with his excellent cinematographer, Mahmoud Kalari, they set up golden and ochre panoramas of village and countryside. This conformed to the respected Asian directors who have used the landscape as a living thing, and not merely a backdrop. Kiarostami would hold a shot double long, and just let things happen within the frame. This really gave a sense of immediacy to the viewer. For some, however, it was slow and boring.
Was there a plot in this film? Well, there was, kind of. Behzad Dourani, called the Engineer, masquerading as an anthropologist, or a treasure hunter, who is probably a filmmaker, and alter-ego for Kiarostami, drove 450 miles north of Tehran to a small Kurdish village. Through a contact in the village, he was aware of a special ceremony that was going to occur when a village elder, an old lady, dies. He was there to film and to capture that ceremony. The old woman, however, did not comply. People were so kind to her, she decided to take nourishment, and she returned to the land of the living.
There were several, almost hidden, themes in the movie. For one thing, the director worked hard at creating a more humane face on the Arab world. Post 9/11, that is quite a task. Nothing political was ever discussed in the film. Another theme was the importance of education. An intense of love of learning, of math, engineering, poetry, and literature worked themselves into the fabric of the non-plot. Something else explored was the reality of death, the close proximity we all share with it, and the need to enjoy our lives every moment that we breathe. Lastly the primary theme was Nature vs. Technology, and the postulate that things natural were preferred.
I liked this film, even though I had to have patience with it. Artistically and cinematically, it required some learning on my part. I did so gladly. It is a wonderful movie cloaked in non-convention.
Rating:
Summary: The master does not stumble
Review: This is one of Kiarostami's simplest films, and consequently one of his best. What is unseen and unsaid and unshown is central to the movie. The tension comes from waiting. Watching a movie like this, one is in the hands of a wise, patient man, who lets his characters tell their own stories. If you are not patient, or you want sex and violence, you will not like it.
Rating:
Summary: This is art...
Review: Three men arrive to a small mountain village in Iran where they are on a secret assignment, to await a woman's death who is over 100 years old and record the ritual ceremony of the death. As they anticipate the death of the woman, the leader of the group begins to explore the extraordinary village and the residents of the village. This exploration becomes a cultural voyage of rural Iran and a simultaneous self-exploration into his own heart while he keeps in contact with civilization with his cellular phone, which can only be used on higher grounds. Kiarostami grasps the moment of each scene with the same detail as Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and leaves the audience with a result to amaze and ponder.
Rating:
Summary: Confused
Review: Where does anyone get the idea that the main character was a film maker? Granted the "plot" was a little confusing, but unless something was lost in translation, it never indicates that he is a film maker. For one small thing, he never films anything and only takes a few photos. Doesn't it lean more toward him working for some undefined "telecommunications company" involved in the construction of the tower? Even the offical review seems to get this point wrong.
Fine acting by the supporting cast. I find it hard to beleive that they were actors at all.
Rating:
Summary: Confused
Review: Where does anyone get the idea that the main character was a film maker? Granted the "plot" was a little confusing, but unless something was lost in translation, it never indicates that he is a film maker. For one small thing, he never films anything and only takes a few photos. Doesn't it lean more toward him working for some undefined "telecommunications company" involved in the construction of the tower? Even the offical review seems to get this point wrong.
Fine acting by the supporting cast. I find it hard to beleive that they were actors at all.
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