They do a surprisingly remarkable job in bringing his story to life, although sitting through A Time for Drunken Horses is more like carrying out an assignment than pleasure. When we meet the children, they're at work wrapping drinking glasses in newspaper for transport across the Iran-Iraq border. Soon into the film their never-seen father is blown up by a land mine and they must soldier on alone. At first he must carry the goods on his back because he doesn't have a mule. On his first journey, he's cheated out of his pay by traders on the Iraqi side.
Misery follows misery.
The best thing about A Time for Drunken Horses, a co-winner of the Camera d'Or prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is that it shows us a slice of life in a part of the world that few would get to see otherwise. After seeing it, you might thank goodness you're not on that mountain with those drunken mules. A Shooting Gallery release written and directed by Bahman Ghobadi in Farsi with English subtitles.