Gabbeh

Shown: 8 February 1999

Iran/France 1995 (subtitles)
Directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Leading players - Shaghayeh Djodat, Abbas Sayah and Hossein Moharami

Synopsis

An old woman washes a gabbeh, or "rug", at the bank of a stream while bickering with her husband. The rug is intricately designed and decorated with the portrait of a young woman, and a man on horseback. "Who are you?" the old woman asks the portrait on the rug. Enchantingly, the young woman comes to life and helps the old couple to clean the rug. She is Gabbeh. She lived in the desert with her nomadic tribe and was in love with the young horseman but was prevented from marrying him by her father. Her sweetheart followed her through the desert, always at a distance, and at night as Gabbeh sat with her family around the camp fire, she heard him wailing at the moon.

It soon becomes clear that the old couple sympathising with the forlorn Gabbeh are indeed the horseman and Gabbeh many years later, reminiscing about their early love and the long wait for marriage.

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Gabbeh, directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is a story told visually rather than through the use of words. Makhmalbaf uses the beauty of nature - the desert and the glorious Iranian landscape, the wonderful colours in scenes like the nomadic people's caravan through the snow with the wind blowing through the rushes - but he also illustrates man's own use of colour. We see the tribe with its sheep, the shearing and spinning of the wool. We also see the wild flowers from which the dyes are made to colour the threads used in the making of the gabbehs.

A simple film, the images are astonishingly colourful and express something of the culture of the nomadic tribes of south east Iran.