A carpet. Few stories as seeds of humanity. Waves of color. Shadows of existence. A huge carpet. Love as threads of this carpet. A parable, a fairy tale, fragment of a honeycomb with mythical honey. Picture of a world in which past and present are a single stitch carpet.Colors, faces music in a mixture who lives in roots of a way to see and describe the universe.. Traditions and games. Confesions of a spirit and water as Ariadne thread. And images. Seductive, fragile, powerful and harsh. Looks as signs of time who is almost piece of clay. A wonderful Iranian movie about the small eternal truth. Twoo old people. A carpet. And a story. The result - an overwhelming beauty.

Right after I finished watching the film, I didn't care for it. I was slightly confused throughout, this may have been because I was distracted, not focusing as much as I should have, but I just didn't feel a connection to it. However, after the screening of this in my film class, I overheard other students talking about how much they liked the film and I decided to research it more. My interpretation is that the old couple is the present day version of the young lovers but, I have read mixed thoughts on this. Makhmalbaf's use of color is visually stunning in the film. He uses it to express mood, and as the characters yell in the film, "color is life!" I am still confused as to what the young woman represented. Did she actually exist? Was she the younger version of the old woman? Was she a complete visualization? This may be ignorant of me because I may need to go back and watch the film again to really have a firm opinion on this film. The most innovative scene in my opinion was the scene in which the man is teaching the young children about colors and reaches out to them, bringing his hand back in and having the color all over it. This was such a modern thing to do but it somehow fit so well into the film. Makhmalbaf did such an amazing job combining the culture with modern touches like color or modern film techniques. For me, that was the biggest message I'll take from this film. I will surely need to have a second viewing before making any definite opinions on the plot.

Chaste and chased, the young woman protagonist in Gabbeh shows just how hard it is to live life as a nomad and how hard it is to be with the one you love. When you’re a nomad, and especially a nomad in Iran, you must follow the lead and orders of the patriarchal leader. This fact of life becomes tough stuff for the young female protagonist and the man seeking to marry her. Indeed, the protagonist’s father did not want to let her go. Why this is the case I don’t know. Perhaps women are like assets for nomadic clans. When the father allows his daughters to marry, does the family of the potential husband give plenty of gifts, goods, and animals in exchange? Perhaps this is the case in Iran. I don't know. One thing I do know is that Gabbeh illustrates how the best kind of love is the love you fight for and take risks on.I don’t know the courtship rituals amongst nomadic tribes but I do know that the protagonist’s husband showed immense fortitude and persistence. In western society, if you follow a woman that length of time for such small gestures of affection and recognition you better be sure you have a chance with her because if you don’t you’ll have a 500ft restraining order placed on you within a matter of days. However, for the protagonist’s husband, the juice was indeed worth the squeeze. The rich, illustrious, and sensual colors associated with the protagonist indeed reflect her beauty and appearance. The wolf call in the film was also illustrative of the protagonist’s beauty. In western society, male wolf howls, cat calls, and whistles may seem demeaning to women adorned in short skirts, high-heels, and glittered bosoms. This is not the case for Gabbeh’s protagonist, however. Adorned in the traditional nomadic garb, the wolf call was a symbol of her pursuing lover’s “lone wolf” solitude and his reverence for her bold but distant beauty. Go watch this movie if you want to know what it sounds like when doves cry.

I approached Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Gabbeh" with high expectations as the film had won a lot of awards at minor film festivals, because Makhmalbaf himself is respected at major film festivals and finally because I am a votary of good Iranian cinema ("Gaav", "Aab, Baad, Khaak", "Devandeh", "Khab e talkh", etc.)."Gabbeh" has all the credentials of an interesting film because of its clever combination of surrealistic and realistic vignettes of Iranian nomads and schools in tents, the rich color of the Iranian rural landscape, and finally the magical world of Persian carpet-making. The film's interesting end provides entertainment in a film that began repeating its visual and aural grammar. "Gabbeh" is not a bad film but somewhere halfway through the film, images of a great master of cinema seemed to be copied… In many ways "Gabbeh" is remarkably close to the works of a genius of cinema Sergei Paradjanov in the Sixties--"Color of Pomegranates" and "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors." For those who have not seen these masterpieces of the late Armenian/Ukranian genius, Makhmalbaf's "Gabbeh" would seem truly unique and groundbreaking. For those fortunate to have seen Paradjanov's works, "Gabbeh" walks along a path well trodden by a little known giant of world cinema. If you loved "Gabbeh", see the works of Paradjanov...But one has to admit Makhmalbaf's actors in "Gabbeh" were well chosen and interesting to watch and the interesting end (not too surprising for intelligent viewers, though) provided above average entertainment for 78 minutes.While this film is a creditable work, it is not the finest example of the Iranian new wave cinema.