LOVER OF SCARECROW

Iran, 2004, 110 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Mahdi Nourbakhsh.

Lover of Scarecrow is a rather exotic tale, set in the 1940s on the border between Iran and Azerbaijan. It focuses on a military uprising, a colonel taking over and one of his lieutenants shooting him before he was able to shoot some blindfolded hostages. The film opens with the lieutenant being wounded and escaping through the forest, coming across a young woman, dressed in very traditional garb, who wants a scarecrow to keep the crows from her fields. She finds him at the river bank and thinks that he could be the scarecrow. The film focuses on the recovery of the lieutenant, his falling in love with the young woman and her mythology of everything in nature being humanised. She has a cantankerous old father. There is also a tinker who is in love with her and who reports the presence of the lieutenant to the colonel. The film focuses on life on the farm, visits to the local town, the pursuit by the colonel of the lieutenant (with some memories of the colonel's past which seems to connect him with the old man). There are possibilities for a happy ending - but they are frustrated as the tinker leads the colonel to the lieutenant. However, the young girl is pregnant and there is hope for the next generation.

The film is paced for an eastern and middle-eastern sensibility, which might try the patience of some western viewers. However, the introduction to the mythologies of the area, the way of life in those times, the military situation, the pursuit of the lieutenant and the melodramatic ending keep audience interest.

1. The setting of the border and the mountains between Iran and Azerbaijan? The beautiful locations? The town, the buses and cars, the modern aspects of that era? The 40s settings, costumes, especially the traditional garb by the young woman? The musical score?

2. The title, the focus on the young woman, her talking to the scarecrow, her talking to nature, her finding the lieutenant, thinking him the scarecrow, rescuing him, helping him to revive, their talks together, his working on the farm, his falling in love with her, the father and his performing the wedding ceremony - and the strange collage of photos (projections into a happy future)? Her pregnancy, the attentions of the tinker, unwelcome, his giving her the musical instrument and the lieutenant playing it? The pursuit by the colonel, her pretending that the lieutenant was not there? The growing dangers, getting in the crops, the downpour? The finale, her confessing the truth to the lieutenant that she did not think that everything was human, it was her way of communing and communicating with nature and not being lonely? The final showdown, her wanting to leave with the lieutenant, the converging soldiers, her looking at them taking him, her pregnancy - the future?

3. The lieutenant, the opening, the hostages, his shooting the colonel, his being wounded by the colonel, the succession of framed sequences for his flight? His being found, the puzzle of where he was, the girl calling him scarecrow? Giving his name, Danial? Being in hiding, the reaction of the girl's father? The tinker seeing him? The gradual recovery, helping unload the bags in the rain, the impatience of the father? His gradually working, helping in the fields, the change of clothes? The father proposing the wedding, the prayer, the ritual wedding? The absence of physical contact visually in the film - and the announcement of her pregnancy? His preparing to leave, the pursuit by the colonel, in the lavatory and threatening the soldier with the knife? His finally being captured, taken away?

4. The father, his love for his daughter, his memories of his wife and the meaning of her name, Love? Work on the farm, sheltering the lieutenant, impatient with him? His going to the town, his clashes with the tinker, his going to see the doctor, the doctor advising him not to smoke? Buying the goods, taking his daughter into the town (and her buying the cigarettes for the lieutenant)? The altercations with the colonel? The return, the marriage, the final confrontation and his shooting the colonel, wounding him? His being shot, memories of his wife?

5. The colonel, the uprising, pursuit of the lieutenant? His own arm wounded and in a sling? The interrogations, the visit to the farm, the tinker telling him the truth but his not believing it, especially the second time? Warning him off? His assistant suffering from diarrhoea all the time? His own memories, the encounter with the farmer's wife? The significance of the memories? His nightmares and the shooting of the lieutenant? His ruthless pursuit of the lieutenant?

6. The tinker, his appearance, size, one eye blinded? The red clothes? His devotion to the girl, giving her the present, his resentment when the lieutenant was playing it? Spying, reporting to the colonel, not being believed, the second time, not being believed? His finally going, leaving (**or was it LEADING?) the colonel, taking the gun from the sleeping colonel, shooting, the pursuit by the colonel, his clothes going up in flames and his death?

7. The doctor, his travelling around the towns, helping the sick? The news that he had escaped?

8. The portrait of the people in the town, in the remote areas of Iran, the connections and contact with Azerbaijan and Baku? The Kurd refugees? The old man being a Kurd? The soldier with the illness and his parents being Turkish and Iranian? The next group on these borders and remote areas?

9. The nature of mythologies, Muslim believers and the different ways of praying, ceremonies? An insight after sixty years into an exotic past?