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• Region: All Regions
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000AQDPFQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,380 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

The Northern Iran winters are so cold that the Kurdish smugglers who live there feed their mules alcohol so that they will carry loads over the mountain passes. In this world of high-risk border crossings and death by land mine, a fatherless young boy named Ayoub scrapes out a living doing odd tasks, supporting his sisters and crippled brother. This may seem like a recipe for seventy-seven minutes of misery, but the director Bahman Ghobadi's affection for his subjects gives the film a certain lightness. He takes the raw materials of his homeland-the harsh landscape, communal rooms, and lambent-eyed children-and fashions a visual poem. Ghobadi documents his subjects without intruding, and the results are quietly enthralling. In Kurdish. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A movie on humanity, June 3, 2006

By 

Ping Lim (Christchurch) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Time for Drunken Horses [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ] (DVD)

Whilst this movie is set at the border of Iran-Iraq, it portrayed the life of a family without any means and of a boy barely in his teens having to take over the helm of the family after their father passed away. He had gotten three other younger siblings to look after and one of them, Madi was handicapped and the person who needed a surgery urgently. The doctor indicated that even after surgery, Madi would die prematurely anyway. Still, Ayoub vowed to take on extra jobs to enable his younger brother to take the surgery. Because the environment is harsh and that livelihood is hard to come by, Ayoub had to take his chances even though there's this possibility that he might work for nothing. It just happened that smugglers that he worked for were opportunistic by nature. The movie was never dull to watch and it made us appreciate what we are taking for granted. Those children depicted in the movie shouldn't be working at their age but they should be having a proper education to get ahead in lives. It was made six years ago and I'm sure that the situation would be worse now with the battles that are raging on in Iraq nowadays. Ultimately, foreign policy against Iran and Iraq would only worsen the plight of the common people. The movie ended abruptly but it gave us a glimpse of the other life that we heard and read about in the news but never lived through it. Even when the environment was hopeless, those selfless children that would give their everything and all to their loved ones showed us that there is afterall, hope. All we need is love, remember? We would appreciate the title better when we watch the movie ourselves. Highly recommended. By the way, there's an interview with the Director as an extra feature in the movie.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not the easiest film you'll ever watch, but quite memorable, December 20, 2005

By 

Jim Quist (Richland Center, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Time for Drunken Horses [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ] (DVD)

Director Bahman Ghobadi's says this movie was made as a tribute to his people, the Kurds. Kurdish tribute is a theme running through each of Ghobadi's subsequent movies, including the very compelling "Turtles Can Fly", available now on DVD from Amazon. Please see that title also.

What's depicted in A Time For Drunken Horses is a way of life very much removed from my sitting here this winter in a warm home with little potential outside for war or any other major hardships. Major hardships seem to be the plight of the Kurds, and the children are not spared; this movie shines for it's lack of sentimentality in dealing with a difficult subject, the lives of the orphans of war.

The cinematography is gorgeous, the mountainous regions of Iran are varied and beautiful and seemingly made for the movies. Thus the entire film is beautiful in a severe and stark kind of way. Like many Iranian films, the ending is not resolved Hollywood-happy, but instead requires the viewer's own imagination.

Note: you can often find a NTSC Region free DVD of this on eBay, which will play on all North American players. However, it's a Chinese edition, and the English subtitles are uneven. A multi-region DVD player is a good investment that will allow you to enjoy discs such as this licensed Region 4 PAL edition.

5.0 out of 5 stars Need NTSC Us version DVD, July 14, 2007

By 

Carey Warey "Tea goddess" (Kingston, Jamaica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time for Drunken Horses [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ] (DVD)

Excellent Movie. When will this be available on NTSC DVD format. I need to add it to my collection.... as well as purchase as gifts.