brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Notably this movie won many awards in the film festivals around the globe. Hard to say it is the director's debuntante product. A tale about the young siblings leading their hard lives where there is no one to look after. The family without the elders guidance trying to fit in the tough society. Theirs earning depending on the illegal business where child labouring is so common, especially in their village. At the early age these kids are behaving equally to the adults like a fully developed mentality. The fight for the normal life in the surround of harsh mother nature where it covered with snows. Kinda rare to see a story that takes place in this part of the earth because most of us believed middle east is a hot desert region.'A Time for Drunken Horses' tells the story of an Iranian Kurdish family who live in the village next to Iraq border. Their lives running on the smuggling business by their father. Once he dies 12 year old Ayoub is forced to take over his father's position in order to feed the family. The family is yet to recover from their recent loss but situation worsens when the doctor says their handicapped brother needs an immediate operation. Auoub begins to work hard to earn enough toman but in the end he falls short and then his sister come to help. How this struggling family without the parents and with a inexperienced leader leads to the right direction is the rest of the story.The director Ghobadi used the non professional child actors in this 80 minute short tale. Where he succeeds to deliver the surreal drama of his country's domestic problems faced by the poor families. The title represents the horses that used for the smuggling. In some part of the story where they feed alcohol for the horses and especially in the end scene it was unbearable to see animal cruelty. It looked surreal and made uncomfortable to watch. On the other side the young boy's battle for his brother's life was endurable. In the end the movie will easily win your heart.

I stumbled on a DVD copy of this film by accident, although I have had very good experience with Iranian cinema in the past.This film is about the hardship that children living near the Iraq/Iran border some ten years ago had to endure to survive. On a daily bases they toiled as adults to carry heavy loads like donkeys, face the threat of land mines and guns from border patrols, a harsh winter, and other challenging elements. Ayoub played the 12-year old who is now the head of the family after his father's death. His acting, and that of the rest of the children, are convincing. Despite poverty and daily challenges, the family siblings took care of each other, including a deformed and ailing brother, with love and a strong bond.The ending is open-ended, probably by design. Scenery of the location is visually pleasant. The plot can be tightened up a bit but, despite the film's slow pace, it is worth watching as a window to lives in the other, less privileged part of the world.

With their mother long dead, twelve-year old Ayoub becomes the head of the family over his four brothers and sisters. Taking up the dangerous smuggling runs of his father, Ayoub is put in an even more difficult situation when he learns that his youngest brother, the severely handicapped Madi is getting steadily worse and will need an operation to live any longer than the next few months. With the dangers involved, Ayoub sets out to make the journey and the money to get Mani the operation he needs.I had never heard of this film before I watched it, nor had I heard anything about it – I just was interested to see an Iranian film (my first I think). Despite having now read the many comments on this site about the film, I must confess that I was not as taken by it as everyone else seems to have been. What it does well is to present us with quite a convincing view of the general hardships and lifestyles of those living in this area and, as such it is pretty interesting. However when you take a look at the plot, it doesn't actually fit with the film's aim of realism. Firstly not a great deal happens and the film is not as consistently involving as it really should have been – even as a documentary style film it has several points where it drags quite heavily. The actual subject of the film rather undermines the reality of the situation, even if it is used to emotionally involve the audience easier than a straight documentary may have done.What I mean by this is the plot device of Madi – in the Western world I can accept a story where others will really put themselves out for others fianically; however in this situation I found it to be unconvincing that Ayoub would risk the immediate future of the rest of his family for the sake of Madi who, lets be honest, was never going to live for very long even with the operation. If he was my brother I would do anything, but I didn't buy that they would be able to spend the money knowing that they would save Madi but maybe condemn the whole lot of them to starvation etc. It did make me more emotionally involved in the film but I have to wonder how much more involving it would have been if Madi's suffering would have been just yet another unchangeable part of this family's situation.The cast are pretty good considering the fact that none of them are actors and, in contrast to many Western movies, it is the children who are vastly superior to the adults. While many of the grownups seem uncomfortable in front of the camera and only act natural when in crowds, the children are best in the smaller moments. In particular Ahmadi's Ayoub is a very sympathetic character and is a good way to get into the story; likewise it is very difficult not to get emotionally involved when you see Ekhtiar-dini crying and crying over just one of his daily injections. However out of the rest of the cast there isn't enough material to go around and too few of the ensemble cast have much to do but hang around and look deprived! The direction is great and manages to blend the beauty of the scenery with the desolation of the lives to good effect – that sounds a bit pompous but I can't describe it any other way!This is a slow film that doesn't have the plot that it deserved and it may alienate the casual viewer but it is still worth the effort. The acting of the main children is very convincing, the direction captures the beauty of Iran as well as the sheer grind of the characters' lives and the film is mostly interesting. Only weaknesses in plotting stop it from being better.

I have found that the Iranian movies are deeply moving. I also enjoyed "The Color of Paradise". The director seems to get "real people" to act out the parts. It seems so realistic that it becomes a documentary. I believe it was either nominated for Oscar for best foreign movie or actually won it. I am not sure - perhaps someone will tell me !Wonderful movie !