The Wind Will Carry Us
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Movie Reviews of The Wind Will Carry Us
Movie Review: A Good Film School Movie
Summary: 3 Stars
I'll risk sounding pedestrian here. And I am fully aware that most of us in mainstream culture in present times have been spoiled to look at movie as instant gratification entertainment. But there are films that need no dissertation or thesis to admire. And then there are films where one rushes to amazon or cineaste websites, in a feverish anxiety, attempting to discover just what a viewer was supposed to be appreciating in a film he or she just spent 120 minutes moving glaciatically through.
The Wind Will Carry Us belongs to the latter category.
I assess a movie by its sum parts. Can scenes or parts be subtracted with the message intact? In this Kiarostami film, I found I kept subtracting until I finally reached one or two core scenes. The most accessible is the figure of the doctor who travels through the countryside looking at nature. The footage is so gorgeously shot, and the doctor's organic, earthy philosophy is rich to the point that I said, "oh, so THIS is the moment we've been waiting for!"
But what of the 110 minutes leading up to it? It's leisurely and it does capture the slow pace of a small remote village.. The regional light is richly tempered and the labyrinthian passages of the living quarters provides many opportunities for Ozu-inspired shots. The repetitive "pilgrimage" to the top of the mountain is a comedy in itself, worthy of a wireless cell phone commercial one imagines would play in Iran.
I don't want to read too much into it, so I'll just say, the film asserts it's right to exist, just as the small village continues, uninterrupted by "engineers" or documentarians who want to treat it as a petri dish culture for observation. We try to impose our values on the film, much like the visitors try to assert their schedule. In the end, outsiders are defeated and retreat, village and villagers triumph.
Movie Review: Slow and methodical but beautiful view of another world
Summary: 3 Stars
Slow and methodical but beautiful view of another world. There is not much happening but the joy of watching people in a world so unlike mine was wonderful. The simple acts of smoking and shaving seem to become inspiration of a movie that looks at what is good and what is evil, not in George W's view but from ordinary country people in Iran. I was glad to view this distant world but it may be too slow for many, you have to be in the proper frame of mind to enjoy this one.Movie Review: A Bit TOO Esoteric
Summary: 2 Stars
-One of the golden rules I go by when watching a DVD is this: I eventually look aside at the DVD player's timer. I do this because the movie has disconnected with my brain; it's more of a visceral reaction, not something I do consciously.
So, I make a note of the time on the timer. If the number is low, say a 7 or an 8 minutes, then the movie usually gets kicked out - it won't hold my attention and I have better things to do with my time than watch a bad movie. If it's high, 25 or 30 minutes, then the movie has surpassed my expectations.
This movie rated a 16 minute-glance. Not great, really. Not "terrible", either.
The things I enjoyed here are the glimpses of rural Iranian life. A couple things struck me: 1. the old lady knew what telecommunications was. Maybe the average rural arab is not the middle-ages barbarian most westerners think he is.
2. We in the west have this image of the typical Arab as a wholy devout Muslim, spending all their time talking about God and praying, and telling the world how much they hate Americans. God was only mentioned a couple times in this film, and the people wpent most of their day eeking out a life from the soil.
This made me think that maybe these people really aren't very different than us in the west: America calls itself a christian nation, but the majority of American's don't believe in Christianity or don't exercise their faith. Maybe the same is true of Arabs.
3. What a rich yet simple life they lead. The small village was beautiful - it wasn't filmed as well as it could have been, but still the atmosphere came through. I wanted to move there.
And what gorgeous land they lived in! Absolutely breathtaking!
The story was simple enough - I think the crew (whom we hear but never see) is a TV crew, not a film crew (some people use the word "film" interchangeably for both video and film). Since the event they have arrived to document never happens (we never see the old lady), the "engineer" spend weeks in this village killing time (since the entire movie plodded along, we never really got the sense that he was there for weeks rather than days).
There were many interesting "polt" points. I particularly liked the engineer's interaction with the man digging the hole. And the woman milking the cow.
But, I have to say, the phone gimmick really got to me after a while. I'd hear the thing go off, see him pick it up and say, "Allo? Allo?" And I'd say to myself, "Not again!"
About 1/6 of this film is footage of the guy driving his car.
Foreign films are great when they give you glimpses of cultures quite alien to our western culture. It's usually for this reason that I watch them. Being a great film is icing on the cake.
The film succeeded as a glimpse of Iran, but failed as a story. So I got the cake without the icing.
I should say here that the movie would have rated 3 stars were it not for the absolutely horrible DVD pressing. All images that moved quickly past the frame tore along their edges. This is not a high-quality print, so buy with caution.
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Movie Review: I'm not satisfied and It Doesn't Register...
Summary: 2 Stars
It's too much a puzzle. Not much of poetry, in fact rather prosaic. Sorry I am not very satisfied and it doesn't really register save and except that it's quite a puzzle and, it's long. Perhaps it has the wrong cast, the hero did not impress at all, nor was the countryside nor village scenes... I tried to but haven't finished the second viewing, it's quite an effort. I have high esteem for Iranian films, and I enjoy "The White Balloon" so much and also another film about broken shoes where children don't have shoes for school... They are so wonderful, but I'm afraid, no, not this one.Movie Review: Transfer does NOT do justice to the exquisite photography and compositions.
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm not going to talk about this film's [grand] quality per se. Just want to let everyone know that the astounding, painterly photography of this film isn't rendered correctly by DVD standards because of a VERY noticeable motion blur problem in the transfer.I know a little motion blur is to be expected in DVD and that in some TVs is more noticeable than in others, but this DVD goes beyond the acceptable norm.
Some of the most beautiful sequences (like the motorcycle trip) do suffer a lot from this, sadly.
Please, be warned about this.