Iran’s ‘The Wind’ Carries Its Tale Slowly Forward

“The Wind Will Carry Us” is another contemplative, minimalist work from Iran’s celebrated Abbas Kiarostami, whose last film, “Taste of Cherry,” took the Palme d’Or at Cannes. “The Wind” is similar, though not as powerful.

In the earlier film, a man from the city, in the grip of despair, heads for a mountainous region looking for someone to kill him and put him out of his misery. In “Wind,” another city man (Behzad Dourani) heads with a crew for a mountain village in Iranian Kurdistan some 450 miles from Tehran.

Apparently, the villagers of Siah Dareh are aware that he is coming and refer to him vaguely as “Engineer.” They don’t really know what his mission is but come to think he is an archeologist looking for buried treasure in the local cemetery. In reality, he is a TV journalist on assignment to record the villagers’ traditional funeral rituals upon the death of a very old woman. The trouble is that instead of growing weaker, she rallies; there seems no question that she is mortally ill, but her death may not be so imminent after all.

Kiarostami discovers the humor in the Engineer’s plight. He can’t very well hasten the woman’s death, but, as time passes, his crew (which we never see, only hear) loses patience.

Meanwhile, the Engineer wanders aimlessly in frustration as the villagers go about their daily routines. They’re in touch with the outside world, but it becomes increasingly clear that they are essentially living an ancient agrarian way of life, close to nature.

For a long time the Engineer, in his self-absorption, does not respond to all this abundant nature, but when he does the film suddenly gathers power and focus, and we’re able to perceive the irony of a man so preoccupied with waiting for a death to occur that he is unable to take any pleasure in being alive.

“The Wind Will Carry Us” has much to be appreciated, but Kiarostami overplays his hand, taking so long to get to his payoff you begin to identify with the Engineer’s fed-up crew.

At 90 minutes “The Wind” might have been stunning, although Kiarostami is also a bit too obviously didactic. At 111 minutes the impact of its finish has been dissipated by too much meandering along the way.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: language, adult themes and situations.

‘The Wind Will Carry Us’

Behzad Dourani: The Engineer

The inhabitants of the village of Siah Dareh

A New Yorker Films presentation of an MK2 Production. Writer-director-editor Abbas Kiarostami. Based on an idea by Mahmoud Ayedin. Producers Marin Karmitz and Kiarostami. Cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari. Music Payman Yazdanian. In Farsi, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes.

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