Gabbeh

I saw this film several years ago when it was first released in the United States and have waited anxiously ever since for it to be released on DVD. The beauty of costume and scenery is enthralling but no less captivating is the love story surrounded by the cultural strictures which have a mythic overlay. Although half my family is Iranian, like most Iranian films, I think it requires more than one viewing to follow and absorb the story line but is well worth the effort. It is a romantic film in the true sense of the word, leaving one with a sense of completion and fulfillment. It is a film for those who have patience and love art and enjoy being swept into another world.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf has done it with every movie he's made. Gabbeh is a major film where beauty is presented in the original language of filmmaking: music -not only the "human music", rather than the music from the sounds of nature- and images -"life is color", "love is color" is said just twice in the film, but the entire film is exactly that: life and love, which is just color-. The expressiveness of the landscape, the Iranian women's clothing and fabric are the main characters of the film. Because masterpieces do not need words, high-tech, major budgets, nor even a plot. 60 minutes of beauty, that's Gabbeh.

«Gabbeh» is the first movie from Iran that I saw. And I'm so happy because since then, I've seen 5 or 6 and all of them were to my eyes excellent.

This movie is simple, poignant and beautiful. It's poetic and magic at the same time. The visual is also fantastic. Truly enchanting.

Out of 100, I gave it 87.

This visually stunning film tells the story of an old couple's gabbeh-a finely crafted Persian carpet. One day when they go to a nearby spring to wash the carpet, an attractive young woman appears suddenly and mysteriously-she is the apotheosis of the people whose tale is told in the carpet's woof and warp.

The film is a surrealistic folk tale. As she helps the old woman wash the carpet, the young woman (the spirit of the carpet) begins the tale of her life, which becomes the film's story. The film's charm lies in the magical use of color and water to tell a story. Young girls are everywhere in native dresses that complement the picturesque scenery with as many dabs of color as a French impressionist painting. The filmmaker here is an artist, adept at sunsets, drifting cotton-white clouds on a pristine blue canvas. Pastels, ultramarines, burnt siennas, ochres-there is a sensuous joy in the very colors of the earth and sky.

The world of the film is a kaleidoscope of color. Exotic birds appear from nowhere like bursts of sunset. Young women dress in native Iranian costumes of reds, golds, blues, and greens. And through it all, the sounds of flowing water, like little bells or delicate wind chimes, is given a palpable presence.

The Persian carpet, no longer mute, beguiles the viewer with its simple, haunting tale of people and places at once so ancient and new. The wolf-like howls of a young woman's lover merge with the sound of the water as it rills and flows over stones, pebbles, and sand. The water is itself a comment on the people whose lives are lived within its boundaries. The magical and surrealistic elements of the peasant girl's story weave themselves into a fairy-tale. What enchantment there is in a young woman's quest for love and continuity. The very air is rich with the colors, sights, and sounds-the spices and incense of the Near East.

GABBEH is so magical, colorful and involving that it makes me feel like a child listening a "once upon a time" story. The film is superb. Every scene is pure magic. At the end, you feel like you were dreaming: a beautiful shining dream. Don't worry if you want to see again and again again... See it now - if it's possible. 10/10