|
New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Time for Drunken Horses, A
Shooting Gallery
FILM:
MPAA RATING: Not rated
Starring
Ayoub Ahmadi,
Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini,
Madi Ekhtiar-dini,
and
Nezhad Ekhtiar-dini
When the youngest boy of a destitute Iranian Kurdish family suffers from a terminal illness, his young siblings struggle to pay for a life-saving operation. (Shooting Gallery)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Bahman Ghobadi
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Bahman Ghobadi
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: October 27, 2000
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
80 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
France / Iran |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Farsi / Kurdish (with English subtitles) |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Deeper and richer in humanity than all but a handful of the American films released this year.
100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
The tale is simply told but stunningly photographed and superbly acted in the best tradition of modern Iranian cinema.
100
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.
91
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.
91
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.
90
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.
90
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.
88
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.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by nonprofessionals.
80
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.
80
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
A central work in the new, boldly politicized Iranian cinema.
80
Variety
Deborah Young
It is all the more heart-wrenching for being realistic. Its portrait of child labor brooks no sentimentality and no cliches.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
A disturbing and forceful drama.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Brief, spare and heartbreaking.
75
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.
75
Miami Herald
Curtis Morgan
A wrenching film.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
In its austere visual understatement rests a ton of emotional power.
70
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Truly in a class by itself.
70
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.
67
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.
63
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.
63
San Francisco Examiner
Wesley Morris
The welcome hints at emotional excess are compromised by the blunt force of the movie's political point-making.
60
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Single-minded, sometimes harrowing.
50
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.
 The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|
