The Wind Will Carry Us

If you're going to watch Iranian film The Wind Will Carry Us, make a big bowl of popcorn, grab your fuzzy blanket, maybe a large soft drink, and prepare to do a lot of one thing: wait. One great literary (and cinematic) technique is to withhold information from the reader/viewer in order to build suspense. Kiarostami masters this technique almost as well as Hitchcock in such classics as Rear Window.

The main difference, however, between Kiarostami and Hitchcock is that the latter is inclined to lead the audience along with little tidbits of action or information while the former is content make very subtle pokes at the truth with the viewers' imaginations without ever really moving things along with any sort of pace. This can almost be seen as a commentary in itself: comparing the audience's impatience with film's pace to the impatience of the engineer and his colleagues with life's pace in the small village. Much like the men are used to a daily schedule run by the ticking hands of clocks to measure progress moviegoers often judge the progress of the story by the amount of time passed and time remaining.

Kiarostami challenges this convention supremely, taking the audience back to a time when life's rhythm was dictated by the position of the sun in the sky and life was seen as blooming with passing time, instead of bleeding away. When you settle down to watch this movie challenge yourself: don't check your watch or cell phone or DVD player once for the time. Instead try to relax and find solace in the fact that while you could probably be doing something more enjoyable, there's something golden about just doing nothing.

This description makes it seem as if the movie is boring; it's not. The Wind just moves at a different pace than you're probably used to. As a movie it's very solid. The engineer, the charming young boy, and the few villagers that you meet play their roles convincingly and their performances help to build the suspense. The beautiful sweeping shots of the Iranian landscape are also worth mentioning and they should leave momentarily breathless. There are also two themes that would be noteworthy if not for the fact that they aren't truly realized until the end of the film. However, after completing the film, it is worth reflecting on these two.

So the real question is: Does Kiarostami keep us waiting too long? For younger audiences probably yes, but those with more patience and/or time would be well served to sit through this film.