Time for Drunken Horses, A

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Deeper and richer in humanity than all but a handful of the American films released this year.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The tale is simply told but stunningly photographed and superbly acted in the best tradition of modern Iranian cinema.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Presents us with characters of such humanity and dignity that it begins to seem obscene that until now we haven't exactly given all that much thought to the Kurds.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The nonprofessional cast of Bahman Ghobadi's remarkable, slow, rough edged feature reveals a simple, piercing grimness and determination framed by the gray, icy landscape of Iranian Kurdistan.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A profoundly anxious picture that from its first frame holds you, clenched, never able to let go, even after its unresolved coda.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.

Film.com Peter Brunette

It simultaneously wows you with the stark beauty of its images, a beauty that leads to another, related kind of truth that is equally crucial. It's not to be missed.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Showing us a world through a child's eyes, A Time for Drunken Horses speaks so truthfully and well that it breaks the heart and scars the conscience.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by nonprofessionals.

Chicago Reader Alissa Simon

More grim and less sentimental than other Iranian films featuring plucky children, this strikingly photographed work stresses the harshness of daily life in Iranian Kurdistan.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

A central work in the new, boldly politicized Iranian cinema.

Variety Deborah Young

It is all the more heart-wrenching for being realistic. Its portrait of child labor brooks no sentimentality and no cliches.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A disturbing and forceful drama.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Brief, spare and heartbreaking.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The real hero here is Ghobadi, whose love and respect for the culture in which he was raised shines through every frame.

Miami Herald Curtis Morgan

A wrenching film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

In its austere visual understatement rests a ton of emotional power.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Truly in a class by itself.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Because of its relentlessness, its crawling pace (the 77 minutes pass like 2 1/2 hours) and its sometimes confusing story, A Time for Drunken Horses may not be for every taste, but it's still an affecting, and in its way beautiful, movie.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Ghobadi works squarely in the neorealist tradition of countrymen like former mentor Abbas Kiarostami, using nonprofessional actors and documentary technique to tell small, spare stories of the human condition through the eyes of children.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Ghobadi (himself an Iranian Kurd) takes some gorgeous shots against the snow, but his storytelling is uneven and often slow.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

The welcome hints at emotional excess are compromised by the blunt force of the movie's political point-making.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Single-minded, sometimes harrowing.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

In Bahman Ghobadi's heart-tugger about Kurdish orphans, those wide eyes are too often used as a manipulative device.