Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)

Shooting Gallery
Directed by Bahman Ghobadi
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Starz)

One of the most depressing films in years. A family of orphaned children scrape by a living in a remote village near the Iraq-Iran border. The oldest brother, himself probably not even a teenager, hustles "loads" in which he carries, on his back and across mountain terrain, smuggled goods. Another family member is a 15-year-old manchild trapped in a crippled, deformed body. A doctor occasionally visits to give him injections and implore the children to get him an operation or else he will die within months. First, hope comes from an arranged marriage for one of the sisters, with the promise that the sick child will get the needed operation. However, the new "mother" rejects the child on sight and leaves him sitting in the snow. Instead, they get a mule. The new plan is to sell the mule, if they can get it across the border. Filled with scenes of animal cruelty, human trafficking, pain and suffering, watch at your own risk.

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