Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord (The Wind Will Carry Us)

This 1999 Abbas Kiarostami picture is a terrific film, with many diferent themes coming together in a highly original execution of a traditional 'outside in town' theme.
One of the interesting tactics used by Kiarostami is the way that we often don't see the face of who is talking or, more likely, who is being talked to. This gives the whole exercise very much a one-man-centric feel, along with some Kafka-esque suggestions (mild references to 'The Castle') thoughout. It also adds to the sense which leads us to never quite have all the pieces in the story, even though about a third of the way through we come to catch the drift.
As for the story, it becomes clearer as a study of a man. He is very unlikable, but this characterisation is done intelligently, so as not to be over the top. Indeed, there is something deeply uncomfortable about everything 'wrong' he does because we recognise that these are precisely the sorts of things we may well find ourselves doing in the same situations. Little acts of thoughtlessness, domination It remains closer to realism that way, and feels very direct, not ostentatious but indeed powerful.
The village we are in, the repititious shots and backdrops, are beautiful, but Kiarostami does not lay this out for us in a traditional 'photographic' sense. The images are not really images, they are moving tableaus....but not really tableaus as we rarely to never notice it as a set up of the camera. The symbols, if you want to call them that, are curious and opaque. It is a film that leaves one thinking, even if you are not at all too sure what about.
There is one particularly memorable scene, of the underground milking, that does have a beautiful still image. The character uses and the poem read fit perfectly.
So, the end of this film is like the rest; we are not evil, we have done something wrong, it is also very beautiful, mystical even, but certainly not graspable. This film leaves one with a feeling rather than a thought. If no one is lovable, one is never quite gunning for anything or anyone, it quietly creeps up and engages you.
An excellent film, a genuine artwork in so far as it is different from the great mass of both narrative and imagistic cinema, even as it is part of those two traditions.