Half Moon (2007) Reviews

Director Bahman Ghobadi follows the success of Turtles Can Fly and A Time for Drunken Horses with this tale of an iconic Kurdish musician who, despite his failing health, determines to lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert staged to celebrate Saddam Hussein's fall and the end of the brutal Iraqi dictator's repression of Kurdish music. Authorization has just been granted for the concert, and upon receiving word of the upcoming musical celebration, Kako (Allah-Morad Rashtian) immediately procures a school bus and sets about rounding up his father, Mamo, and many brothers. Mamo is an elderly statesman of Kurdish music, and as the jovial collection of men make their way across the border between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, they bear witness to a wide-ranging variety of sights both sublime and soul-scarring. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi