Niwemang (Half moon) - Bahman Ghobadi

questo è un film che ricorda, mutatis mutandis, "La banda".
una storia di musicisti in viaggio, due donne bellissime, voci che resuscitano i morti.
appassionante e coinvolgente, non sarà perfetto, ma per me è un piccolo capolavoro da scoprire.
buona visione, non ve ne pentirete - Ismaele

…Ghobadi has generally explored three basic themes or messages in his films:

1. Kurdish culture, particularly its music
2. The cruelty of political borders that artificially separate people of a common culture
3. The barbarous and unjust way women are oppressed by the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In this film, he emphasizes these three themes with more vehemence and with more artistic liberties than he has done in the past…

…Overall, the Kurdish music is the strongest and most moving aspect of the film, and I would have preferred to have more of it. A particularly strong example and the most stunning moment in the film is when Mamo retrieves Hesho from the village of 1334 women. This symbolic scene is a visual and musical master stroke – very contrived, but also stirring. It is also an exquisite needle with which to prick the Iranian social restrictions on women. According to Iranian rules, a woman may not sing in public, but a group of women, i.e. a women’s chorus, may perform in public. When Mamo goes to this penal colony, he is told that the women there are so skilled with their singing that they collectively sound like the voice of a single woman. And, yes, on the soundtrack for this scene, as they all sing together, we hear the voice of a single woman.

da qui

…Half Moon displays both a sharpening of Ghobadi's filmmaking (his use of landscapes for both wry absurdism and somber reflection is especially assured) and, somewhat more problematically, an intensification of his penchant for the fantastic. The film's increasing forays into mysticism culminate with the appearance of the titular character (Golshifteh Farahani), a beautiful young woman who literally drops out of the sky just as Mamo's odyssey hits a dead end. Part heavenly envoy and part angel of death, she's a sketchy conceit that nevertheless provides a moment worthy of Kusturica when her singing briefly breathes life back into a body about to be laid into the ground. Such flourishes prove redundant, however, in a film that at its most earthbound already poetically articulates the need to keep Kurdish tradition from falling into the grave of cultural crisis.

da qui

…his sympathy for the underdog and belief in the power of the human spirit shine through. You’ll be willing the cantankerous old git and his motley crew to get to the gig on time and in one piece. But do they make it? Ah, that would be telling. To find out you’ll have to go and see an ‘Award-Winning World Cinema Masterpiece’. And, trust me, you won’t regret it.

da qui

…The film looks at a group of Kurdish musicians, who decide to perform a concert in newly liberated Iraq. The head of the group is Mamo, a celebrated Kurdish musician, who brings his ten sons (yes, there are definitely absurdist qualities to the film, especially given that some of the sons look older than Mamo) along with him as his musical accompaniment. They hire a rickety bus, which one wonders how it could drive on highways, let alone the rugged Kurdish landscape. He also needs a female singer, but as Iran does not allow female singers, they have to resort to rather desperate smuggling tactics.

da qui