Review: The Wind Will Carry Us

Contrasting the simple beauty of life itself with the absurd intrusions and blinders of modern deadlines and technology, Abbas Kiarostami presents a film that is both compassionate and ironic. The Wind Will Carry Us follows a group of media professionals, identified early on as “engineers,” who travel to a small village in Iran.

We later discover that the “engineers” were really in town to document the archaic and brutal grieving rituals the local townspeople submit themselves at times of mourning. But along the way, the viewer is invited to experience the new world just as the town’s visitors do. The film is an investigation – a philosophical examination into the nature of man, existence and civilization.

The story of the engineer is counter-pointed against the lives of the people he encounters: a young boy who becomes his guide, a laborer who discusses the restrictive roles of women, a pregnant woman who shelters them, and the village elder, or teacher, who surmises the reason of their visit.

Kiarostami has a wonderful ability to take the rustic and mundane of everyday life in a normal rural Middle Eastern town – and show the mysterious and beautiful moments as poetry. The script frequently recites poetry throughout the film while the images display equally deeply poetic lines. And the continual play of the “engineer” having to drive to a mountain top to find a cellular signal is the perfect metaphor for the stories plot line of the modern age set against an old world where modern invention is not needed. The film is a beautiful tale of contrast that is translated by subtitles but not in need on translation of truth.