Over the course of a long take from a stationary camera, Behzad remains offscreen while Zeynab is filmed mainly from behind, though we can see her hands milking the cow. Another scene in the film briefly and quite incidentally shows us a pair of fornicating cows, yet no Iranian I've spoken to has suggested that this detail might be worrying the censors. In other words, it appears that they consider the viewer's imagination more dangerous than anything that's seen, and for this reason they find the erotic atmosphere in the cellar unacceptably provocative. It's a scene with echoes in Behzad's encounters with an older woman who runs a local cafe and some local women he photographs, all of whom seem to see him as an invader and his car and camera as weapons. My guess is that the cellar scene is provocative mostly because it taps into the sort of emotions and sensations that are stirred by poetry.
Literary prose seems to create the same sort of passionate response.
In the title sequence of The Wind Will Carry Us absences define presences in numerous ways. Most of the sequence unfolds in semidarkness, and it isn't until the very end of it, after Behzad leaves, that we get to see Zeynab's face in broad daylight, and then only from a distance. The TV antennas that dot the village help us realize that these people are no more beyond the reach of media than the media people are beyond the reach of the village. The key point is that they speak different body languages, occupy different time frames, and utilize power quite differently. I began by describing of contemporary Iranian cinema as the most ethical in the world.