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Truly Dreadful Film

That was an excellent one.

Powerful

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The Gabbeh, a type of hand-woven rug made by the Nomadic tribes of the Middle East, is the name and main focus point of the recently released film "Gabbeh".The film starts as the Gabbeh drifts through a shallow river, an old couple, are attempting to cleanse the rug. As the women begins to clean the rug, the spirit of a young girl, perhaps the old lady as a young women, springs from the rug, the young girl says that the rug used to belong to her tribe, and that the rug tells the story of her tribe. The girls tribe is very family oriented, the girl wish to marry, but is told that she cannot, not till her uncle marries. Time passes and the girl's fiancé/lover follows her tribe on horseback, they finally find a wife for her husband, when her father adds another stipulation. The girl's mother is once again pregnant and the girl, being one of the oldest daughters cannot marry or leave the tribe till her mother has the baby. While this may seem mean of the father, to place all these obstacles in the way of his daughter's marriage, he may have just been ensuring that the man on horseback really wants to marry his daughter; that this man will not just run off at the first sign of trouble or hardship. This could be the father's way of ensuring that the man is serious in his intent to marry the girl. All through the film the fiancé/ lover follows the tribe remaining faithful to his betrothed.The girl finally decides to run off with her fiancé/lover, and I can't help but think that is exactly what the father wanted, he was unable to physically let his daughter go, so he forced upon her situations, in which the only way she could truly get what she wanted was by running.

Gabbeh is unique because it is only the second Iranian film distributed around the United States. The definition of an actual gabbeh is an Iranian carpet that is produced by women. It is similar to American quilts. They are usually full of color and sometimes tell stories. This quality is what this movie plays off of. The beginning of the film shows an elderly couple at a stream washing their rug. There is a couple sewed on it, and they begin discussing the story behind it. The woman from the rug comes to life. It takes the viewer a second to realize what had happened, because there are no special effects or special camera angles used to make this clear. The fact that only one face at a time is shown, and when the camera back up, only the elderly woman is shown what seems like talking to herself. Another thing that gives that she is not real is that fact that she is wearing the same shawl as the elderly woman, and her name is Gabbeh, the name of the carpet. She begins to tell the old woman her tragic story, which all ties in with the overwhelming theme of color. She wants to marry her lover who stays on horseback and is never shown up close. She can not do this until her uncle gets married and several other stipulations have been met. Color is used as a rebellious symbol because it usually is not allowed or considered appropriate for bright and rich colors to be worn by women of that time, but in this film, every woman is a multitude of colors, fabrics, and even dangling tokens coming off of their dresses and shawls.

The most enchanting movie I have seen in a long time. Visually stunning and breathtaking, like a trip to a museum that is rich with colorful paintings. Many beautifully chanted songs and little dialog. The best Iranian movie I have seen. And on an international level, it's the most artistic, yet not boring. The story comes out in colors, songs, and little dialog (suitable for those who don't like reading sub-titles).This movie marries a fiction story with a documentary about a tribe and their tradition to make Gabbeh, a hand-woven carpet. The screenplay is very original and unusual -- in a good way. It definitely does not follow the clear-cut Hollywood recipe. This might confuse some viewers but this movie would be seen as a gem by other viewers who enjoy creativity.

I approached Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Gabbeh" with high expectations as the film had won a lot of awards at minor film festivals, because Makhmalbaf himself is respected at major film festivals and finally because I am a votary of good Iranian cinema ("Gaav", "Aab, Baad, Khaak", "Devandeh", "Khab e talkh", etc.)."Gabbeh" has all the credentials of an interesting film because of its clever combination of surrealistic and realistic vignettes of Iranian nomads and schools in tents, the rich color of the Iranian rural landscape, and finally the magical world of Persian carpet-making. The film's interesting end provides entertainment in a film that began repeating its visual and aural grammar. "Gabbeh" is not a bad film but somewhere halfway through the film, images of a great master of cinema seemed to be copied… In many ways "Gabbeh" is remarkably close to the works of a genius of cinema Sergei Paradjanov in the Sixties--"Color of Pomegranates" and "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors." For those who have not seen these masterpieces of the late Armenian/Ukranian genius, Makhmalbaf's "Gabbeh" would seem truly unique and groundbreaking. For those fortunate to have seen Paradjanov's works, "Gabbeh" walks along a path well trodden by a little known giant of world cinema. If you loved "Gabbeh", see the works of Paradjanov...But one has to admit Makhmalbaf's actors in "Gabbeh" were well chosen and interesting to watch and the interesting end (not too surprising for intelligent viewers, though) provided above average entertainment for 78 minutes.While this film is a creditable work, it is not the finest example of the Iranian new wave cinema.