Ghobadi acted in Samira Makhmalbaf's Blackboards, and like that film,
A Time For Drunken Horses is set around the mountains of the Iraq-Iran
border. What's different is the evident compassion for its characters
- a family of orphaned children who are forced by circumstance into
working as human mules, carrying impossibly heavy loads across
dangerous, mined terrain. This is heart-rending stuff, but Ghobadi
plays it straight and simple. A small gem with a big heart.
