Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf - 1996
Focus on colour, clearly. A mixture of very long shots, in pretty long takes, and some quite close moves, always still, between faces, to create the slightly magical continuity elements. The matches on action, where magic occurs, gives thought to one of the principle elements of this film, the idea of abundance; of image, of colour, of warmth, of people communicating.
Those great strong colours, centered in the frame and in the treatment, are the life against what is often a pretty arid looking background. They are the stuff of something called 'life'.
The plot is clearly a bit of magical realism, time colliding, a look back on a life by throwing past and future together to have a chat with each other. The plot functions very gently in the background, with the idea of the refrain being key, and the idea of narrative more than a logical working out. The film seems largely to want us to focus on colours, life, patience in this, people.