WIND AND FOG

Iran, 2011, 74 minutes, Colour.
Directed by. Mohammad Ali Talebi.

During the 1990s, Iran made quite a number of films that focused on little children. They had an international appeal as well and won many awards. They included The White Balloon, Children of Heaven and The Colour of Paradise. Wind and Fog seems a throwback to those times, but is welcome nonetheless.

The setting is the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq? war of the 1980s, a harsh and traumatic time for Iran, and still a subject for so many of the films coming from that country.

The basic plot here is timeless. A widowed father (from the war bombardments) brings his two children to stay with their grandfather in the mountains. He had previously worked on the gasfields. The little girl is bright and is solicitous for her younger brother who is not quite right mentally. He is bullied at school where she stands up for him. One day, during the hunting season, while the grandfather takes them fishing, the little boy comes across a wounded goose and is fascinated. Watching her brother and the goose is the occasion for flashbacks to their previous life where the little boy was also bullied as the children flew kites on the harsh and hot surroundings of the gas pipes.

Later, the girl is welcomed back at school, but the little boy goes off in the night to search for the goose and he becomes lost. His sister and a girl who had been hurtful search for the boy – aided by the flock of geese.

So, a film of charm as well as of people’s insensitivity, inviting audiences to be understanding and compassionate. The mountain and forest scenery is beautiful, a refuge from the war that has devastating effect elsewhere (and on the national psyche and memory).