水、风、土

     This is an unusual film of exceptional values--75 minutes long in color, with hardly any spoken dialogs       I saw this Iranian film in Farsi without English subtitles at the Early Iranian cinema retrospective on-going International Film Festival of Kerala, India       That I was watching a print without subtitles did not make a difference as there were very few lines of spoken dialogs      　　This is a very accessible film for any audience to enjoy--its story and values are not merely Iranian, it's universal      　　The film is set in rural Iran that had not tasted petro-dollar prosperity       The setting is on fringes of desert land, where water is scarce, rainfall scanty and hardly any blade of grass is green       Add to it wind and dust that buffets and whips man and animal and you can imagine plight of the people who live on the fringes of society      　　The film is moving tale of a young teenager returning to his village with a goat--only to find his family and villagers have moved on to escape natures vagaries and that one old man remains       He gives the goat to him and goes in search of his family       Water is scarce and well water it treated with reverence and never wasted