Like many of the current wave of Iranian filmmakers, Bahman Ghobadi recruited a cast of non-actors for the film, and the effect is remarkable. Central to the story is the plight of Madi, a handicapped young man trapped in the body of a small child. Living off pills and shots, Madi must be carried by his younger siblings through the snow, as they struggle to make enough money to live off, and to pay for Madi's treatment. It's a sad, harrowing tale that wrenches at the hearts of the audience. Child labor is something that Americans take for granted that just doesn't happen anymore, but in regions like Kurdistan where people live in the most extreme of conditions, it's an unfortunate fact of life.
Audiences going into A Time for Drunken Horses expect that it is a story of struggle.
The tone is bleak, but there are small rays of light in the forms of the strong bonds that the children have with each other. The film's greatest value, I think, is to show us another tale of the world, shedding light on the plight of the Kurds, which mirrors the plight of other unrepresented peoples around the world. The untrained actors all bring a reality to the roles that captures the moviegoer's eye perfectly. You are for a short while, with those children in Iran, struggling to get to the Iraq border. With foreign films still making such a small percentage of the films available at theaters this fall, this emotional and powerful tale of Kurdish poverty is a rare, cinematic gem worth seeking out.