DVD review

A Time For Drunken Horses

Bahman Ghobadi's gruelling account of Kurdish hardships on the Iran/Iraq border has none of the artful self-consciousness of Samira Makhmalbaf's remarkably similar Blackboards. Instead, this powerful story of eldest child Ayoub trying to smuggle his dying brother into Iraq features brutally uncompromising scenes of bareknuckle kiddie fistfights, savagely battered horses, and the casual physical abuse of a crippled child.

Rating: 4 / 10

Retail dvd (tartan video, widescreen)


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Editor's Letter

An encounter with Van Morrison


Consider this the last in a short series of encounters with somewhat cantankerous sorts, following accounts in this space over the couple of weeks of meetings with Lou Reed and Gordon Lightfoot, both of which have stirred some passing interest and lively comment. Today’s subject is Van Morrison...