Gabbeh

The West's perception of Iranian cinema--to the extent that the West even has a perception of Iranian cinema--is dominated by the towering figure of Abbas Kiarostami. Rivaling him in skill, however, and far surpassing him in popularity in their native country, is Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a former religious fanatic who came to his senses after a stint in jail and gradually evolved into a world-class filmmaker. Gabbeh, the first of his dozen or so films to find an American distributor, is impressionistic, allusive, compact, and undeniably gorgeous; it's also borderline incomprehensible. The narrative defies description: basically, there's this rug, the gabbeh of the title, which turns into this young woman, who proceeds to relate her life story to the old couple who had been washing her back when she was still a hunk of fabric, though in fact she still is the gabbeh, in the sense that...no, it's pointless. There are many memorable moments--I particularly enjoyed a sequence in which a man explains the concept of color to a group of schoolchildren by plucking objects of appropriate hues from the sky--but moments, ultimately, they remain. Optional. (M. D'Angelo)[DVD Review—Oct. 4, 2005—New Yorker, 75 min., in Farsi w/English subtitles, not rated, $29.95—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1996's Gabbeh sports an average transfer, as well as DVD extras including an audio commentary by critic Godfrey Cheshire, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a lovely if cryptic film.]