Half Moon: Again With the Kurdish Neorealism

Bahman Ghobadi, Dogpatch fabulist and dean of Iranian Kurdish cinema, leads another magical mystery tour through his mountainous homeland—populated, per usual, by a small army of cute urchins, irascible wives, and garrulously self-important old goats. One of the latter, a renowned Kurdish musician named Mamo, visits a village where 1,334 women singers have been exiled and attempts to smuggle one into Iraq for a concert with him and his 10 sons. The music is, as always, terrific; the overall ethno-funkiness brings Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles Can Fly) within hailing distance of such folk-cinema maestros as Alexandr Dovzhenko and Sergei Parajanov. J. HOBERMAN