Tribeca 2007

Half Moon

Niwe Mung (Iran-Iraq-Austria-France)

By RONNIE SCHEIB

An old Kurdish musician takes his 10 sons on a perilous journey across the border into Iraq in Bahman Ghobadi's 'Half Moon.'

A Strand Releasing release of a Mij Film (Iran-Iraq)/New Crowned Hope (Austria)/Silkroad (France) production. Produced by Bahman Ghobadi. Executive producers, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths. Directed by Bahman Ghobadi. Screenplay, Ghobadi, Behnam Behzadi.
 
With: Ismail Ghaffari, Allah Morad Rashtiani, Hedieh Tehrani, Golshifteh Farahani.
(Kurdish, Farsi dialogue)
 

A venerable Kurdish musician takes off with his 10 sons to cross the border into Iraq, a voyage fraught with danger and portents of catastrophe in Bahman Ghobadi's "Half Moon." Each succeeding Ghobadi film feels like a journey back to a hauntingly familiar yet ever-changing landscape; here, death blurs the frontier between reality and dream, though never dimming the pic's startling beauty, raucous humor or indomitable ethos. Less immediately accessible than Ghobadi's child-centered tragedies "A Time for Drunken Horses" and "Turtles Can Fly," picaresque odyssey should still safely lure dedicated arthouse auds.

One of seven non-Western directors commissioned by Peter Sellars to make features for the New Crowned Hope Festival in oblique celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday, Ghobadi drew his inspiration for "Half Moon" from the composer's posthumous "Requiem," which may explain its trafficking in graves, coffins and transfiguration.

After seven months of trying, legendary musician Mamo (Ismail Ghaffari) has finally obtained permission to perform in Iraq for the first time in 35 years. He impatiently rounds up all his sons, willing or not. Chauffeured by his great fan, Kako the cockfighter (Allah Morad Rashtiani), in a borrowed bus, Mamo and his sons head out.

Obsessed with preserving the Kurdish musical heritage (hitherto banned in Iraq and still compromised in Iran), Mamo cares little for borders, laws or a village elder's foretelling of a terrible happening before the half-moon. Nor is he daunted by his sons' reluctance to undertake the trek; he casually shoots a fleeing offspring's earlobe from a hundred yards away to prevent his escape.

But nothing in Kurdistan is simple. Though the toppled Saddam Hussein no longer rains bombs or poison gas on Kurdish heads, persecution by officials and border guards is pervasive, petty and destructive. The Iraqi border is still raked by gunfire, even if it is unclear who is shooting.

Of course, Mamo's insistence on including a femme singer -- who has to be smuggled out of Iran where women are banned from singing publicly -- greatly complicates the situation. Mamo's decision also gives birth to the film's most stunningly memorable imagery: a hidden city of 1,334 banished female singers, all colorfully garbed and holding round drums aloft as, lining the rooftops, they bid a musical welcome to the old maestro.

Bribery, not mysticism, makes it possible for Mamo to escape with graying diva Hesho (Hedieh Tehrani), but bribery's effects prove fleeting. Police brutality and uncertain allegiances soon leave Mamo stranded with no instruments, no female voice, and fewer and fewer sons.

Pic's mystical ending, involving a beautiful young woman named Half Moon (Golshifteh Farahani) with a divine voice and a fortuitous coffin, registers as both transcendent and grotesque. Though pic in many ways resembles the helmer's other musical odyssey, "Marooned in Iraq," the comedy here is less earthy; villages host funerals rather than shoot-'em-up weddings, corpses seem more lively than the mourners, and musicians, though they practice desultorily, never come right out and play.

In many ways, "Half Moon" is a mystical reflection on the fragility of Kurdish tradition, as cell phones and computers replace direct contact, and projected international concerts preclude informal musical riffs. Mamo's sons, all accomplished musicians, have other callings, seldom driven by their muses. Kurdish music resonates only in lost cities, beyond the grave -- and in the movies.

Ghobadi, as usual, elicits wonderfully eccentric perfs from his nonpros, while Western cameraman Nigel Bluck's widescreen lensing snagged a cinematography award at San Sebastian to match pic's top film prize. Music, all-pervasive on the soundtrack if not on the screen, is consistently superb.

Camera (color, widescreen), Nigel Bluck; additional camera, Crighton Bone; editor, Hayedeh Safiyari; music, Hossein Alizadeh; production designer, Mansooreh Yazdanjoo, Ghobadi; sound (Dolby Digital), Bardan Ardalan. Reviewed at Tribeca Cinemas, New York, April 20, 2007. (In Tribeca Film Festival -- competing; also in Toronto, San Sebastian, Pusan, Rotterdam film festivals.) Running time: 113 MIN.