Product Details

• Actors: Ayoub Ahmadi, Rojin Younessi, Amaneh Ekhtiar-Dini, Madi Ekhtiar-Dini, Nezhad Ekhtiar-Dini
• Directors: Bahman Ghobadi
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Lorber Films
• DVD Release Date: February 15, 2011
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B004F1AV7M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,415 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Deeply absorbing... A- --Entertainment Weekly

Haunting and unforgettable --Los Angeles Times

Product Description

Winner of the Camera D or (Best First Feature) at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, A Time for
Drunken Horses announced Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi (Turtles Can Fly, No One Knows
About Persian Cats) as a major talent. His debut follows the heart-wrenching drama of a Kurdish
family living on the Iran-Iraq border. The only work available in this poverty-stricken locale is to
smuggle goods between the countries, through hills stalked by armed bandits. These dangers rob
Ayoub (Ayoub Ahmadi), Amaneh (Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini), Rojin (Rojin Younessi) and the developmentally
disabled Madi (Madi Ekhtiar-dini) of their parents, and they are forced to fend for
themselves. Ayoub is the eldest boy, and soon starts making the perilous overland journeys himself,
desperate to raise money for Madi s life-saving operation. Surviving the snowy valleys and marauding
thieves does not bring in enough money, and their uncle sets up an arranged marriage for Rojin,
threatening to split up the close-knit siblings. Haunting performances by the non-professional child
actors convey a devastating portrait of Kurdish life on the margins of Iranian society.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For a story of REAL life for the world's poor... September 19, 2003

By Tara Marshall

Format:VHS Tape

This is a film with no noticable special effects, just people, places, and cameras. Basically, a two brothers and two sisters are left orphaned when their father dies in a smuggling incident (their mother died before the film began). Their aunt and uncle help arrange a marriage for the oldest sister, with a Kurdish family across the border in Iraq. They assume that this family will take the oldest brother, who is severely mentally and physically disabled. They don't, and the younger brother and sister try to scrape and save money to get him an operation so that he will live a little longer.

The name of the film comes from the fact that the conditions in the mountains are so bad that the smugglers have to get the mules drunk so they'll go.

This movie ends in uncertainty, rather than having the tidy plot and finish so common in American movies. I highly recommend it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Relentless Description of Reality and Power Of Cinematic Imagery January 25, 2006

By Tsuyoshi TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:VHS Tape

The strong feature debut of Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi (`Turtles Can Fly' 'Marooned in Iraq') is a simple story against the background of stark reality of the Kurds living in Iran, or I should say, in Kurdistan the area that includes south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran. In this `A Time for Drunken Horses' Ghobadi a Kurd himself shows how children must survive on their own in Kurdish village, doing illegal (and highly dangerous) job of smuggling across the border between Iran and Iraq.

Ayoub is a 12-year-old boy who works in the town nearby, and he takes care of his elder physically handicapped brother Madi. Madi is slowly getting worse, and Ayoub knows that his brother needs an operation. Madi has also two sisters Rojin and Ameneh, but lost his mother recently, and another sad news arrive - the death of his father on the smuggling trip.

Now Ayoub must quit the school and work for his remaining family. This means Ayoub has to follow the footsteps of his father, who went across the Iran-Iraq border as smuggler. But the road is covered with snow, and the trip is risky because of the landmines and soldiers. And the employers may not be trustworthy. Even the mules have to endure very tough trek in the heavy snow (and people have to have them drink whiskey - hence the title though the director changed it to "horses").

[BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPE] Following the tradition of Iranian films in which the line that divides fiction and non-fiction is blurred, Ayoub is played by real-life Kurd boy Ayoub Ahmadi, and Madi by Madi Ekhtiar-dini. They are no professional actors, but the fact works to make the film realistic, sometimes almost like documentary. But what is most impressive is the stunning beauty of the landscapes. The images are often poetic, but still never fail to capture the life of the people living there. You have never seen anything like the awe-inspiring scenes in which the smugglers walk in the snowfield with the mules carrying two huge tires strapped to their sides.

Probably not every Kurdish child lives a life like this, and `Marooned in Iraq' Bahman Ghobadi's follow-up to `Drunken Horses' shows a different aspect of the life of Kurdish people (about music in particular). Thus you can see the film as political message from the unjustly treated people, but at the same time it is strong with a more universal theme about the children who must confront the hard reality of life. Either way, the film is unforgettable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars WAR'S AFTERMATH PAINTED IN INDELIBLE SHADES OF PAIN March 10, 2011

By Robin Simmons VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

The unimaginable struggle of orphaned Kurdish children living near the Iran-Iraq border is somewhat fictionalized in a story of their involvement in various smuggling scams in which they are routinely cheated of their compensation. Harrowing scenes of trying to roll huge truck tires over a snowy mountain under conditions so appalling that the mules and horses have to be fed whisky to get them to work. Director Bahman Ghobadi has fashioned an extraordinary 80-minute slice of life that refuses to be dismissed or forgotten by anyone who experiences it. Peter Bradshaw of UK's The Guardian says, "...this is a film with its own unflinching gaze, a film that makes children bear the burden of an existence too much for any adult. The pain and aftermath of war is painted here with indelible shades of pain.