This movie recalls Pasolini in mind, and also Parajanov.
The subject is as simple as it can be: there is a village, poor and primitive, Hassan is the only one possessing a cow in the village, the cow dies, Hassan gets mentally insane.
Is Hassan mad? Well, obviously. A man who believes that he is no more himself, but his cow, that's madness on all accounts.
Madness? Hassan was living in his own universe ignoring the real world. But here's the point: Hassan had always lived in his own universe - he and his cow. A whole system of memories: events lived together. Natural phenomenons lived together and having a particular significance for them: a whole system of codes and signals. Was it full moon? It meant the cow was thirsty.
This universe could not disappear once the cow was no more. The memories were still in place. The codes and signals were still in place. Was it full moon? It meant the cow was still thirsty.
So Hassan was just defending now this universe of him; only his universe was no more fit with the world. Hence, the madness.
Usually, when the beloved one is no more, the survivor is tempted to imagine that the other is still somewhere, not far. You go to the cemetery and speak to your beloved one, who is buried there. Hassan was trying something more forceful: to imagine that he, Hassan was somewhere, not far, and that the cow was here, in his body, instead of him! I know how it sounds, but it was Hassan's way to keep his universe.
Meanwhile life was going on in this village. A bunch of clay houses surrounding a small dirty pool. Old men chatting at some kind of a tea house, old women attending silently the daily events and waiting for the outcome, the village idiot tortured by kids for mere distraction, the nightly incursions of neighboring villagers: just a small closed universe around a small dirty pond.
Faced with the sudden madness of Hassan, the community comes to help, with great kindness and patience, to discover that help is sometimes useless and that kindness and patience have narrow limits.
A tragic ballade telling us that some things happen just because that's their way to happen and nobody could change anything.
The subject is as simple as it can be: there is a village, poor and primitive, Hassan is the only one possessing a cow in the village, the cow dies, Hassan gets mentally insane.
Is Hassan mad? Well, obviously. A man who believes that he is no more himself, but his cow, that's madness on all accounts.
Madness? Hassan was living in his own universe ignoring the real world. But here's the point: Hassan had always lived in his own universe - he and his cow. A whole system of memories: events lived together. Natural phenomenons lived together and having a particular significance for them: a whole system of codes and signals. Was it full moon? It meant the cow was thirsty.
This universe could not disappear once the cow was no more. The memories were still in place. The codes and signals were still in place. Was it full moon? It meant the cow was still thirsty.
So Hassan was just defending now this universe of him; only his universe was no more fit with the world. Hence, the madness.
Usually, when the beloved one is no more, the survivor is tempted to imagine that the other is still somewhere, not far. You go to the cemetery and speak to your beloved one, who is buried there. Hassan was trying something more forceful: to imagine that he, Hassan was somewhere, not far, and that the cow was here, in his body, instead of him! I know how it sounds, but it was Hassan's way to keep his universe.
Meanwhile life was going on in this village. A bunch of clay houses surrounding a small dirty pool. Old men chatting at some kind of a tea house, old women attending silently the daily events and waiting for the outcome, the village idiot tortured by kids for mere distraction, the nightly incursions of neighboring villagers: just a small closed universe around a small dirty pond.
Faced with the sudden madness of Hassan, the community comes to help, with great kindness and patience, to discover that help is sometimes useless and that kindness and patience have narrow limits.
A tragic ballade telling us that some things happen just because that's their way to happen and nobody could change anything.