Half Moon
The director of A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly is a Kurdish Iranian, and his films have a careful, even commercial gloss you might not associate with contemporary Iranian cinema. Half Moon was commissioned for the New Crowned Hope series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, and it's essentially a road trip movie. Mamo (Ismail Ghaffari), a renowned Kurdish musician, is taking his band of sons across the border into Iraqi Kurdistan for a concert. Oppression of Kurdish women singers and the casual terror of border crossings are softened by pretty images (green and white banners flown from the side of the bus; lines of exiled singers hoisting tambourines) and a powerful sense of sustaining joy even in the face of fate. Some plot developments in Half Moon feel pat, but its gentle politics and serene beauty are ultimately rewarding.
By Annie Wagner
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