| The Wind Will Carry Us: Communication Redefined |  |  |  |
| Written by Otty Widasari |
| Tuesday, 15 July 2008 00:00 |
| A machine from modern civilization, consists of modern men crossing the winding cracking hills road to find hard location and no sure direction except for the signs of nature. The location to find is somehow remote. Color gradation on the sun capture it, in the vast land cover with gold color. Thus, the link of communication is show by the film of Abbas Kiarostami, The Wind Will Carry Us.  And so it is, the long spiritual journey performs by Behzad and crews which about to filming the traditional death ceremony in Kurd village, Shiah dareh. This journey brings modern culture with them and stays in the midst of traditional culture full of women, children and old men. Functionally, the story want to share the idea of social character of the Kurdish men as voyagers and always traveling outside their barrio to works, going to school or fight for independency. This spiritual quest confirm an action of searching for treasure which hidden for thousand years, in one of the heart location of the Iranian civilization history and was an ancient city where originate the Kurdish, the place that even called as the first step of the Aryan which now introduce as Iran, the place of the cross culture between west and east. Thus came a modern man named Behzad Dourani who brought a modern woman (Forough Farokhzad whom represented by her poem), to meet traditional dying woman aged more than 100 years old (a representation of grand age in the life of human beings for it was the age that witnessed the shifting of a century). There mentioned that the death ceremony in Shiah Dareh village has a specific tradition and exotically views by city men as an object worth of filming. However, the traditional villagers took it as a sacred ritual. Its sacred came along with the poem of Forough Farokhzad who visited Shiah Dareh with Behzad. And the modern man has a pragmatic conclusion in denote the poem on the shadows of death that he brought it with. But the meaning web in the poem has brought the modern man to an unknown area. Gender matter is one of the main issues in the film. Since the very beginning that Behzad entered the village gate, he always passed women whom at all time greeted him first. Although describe in their domestic domain, where women are rulers and able to fight for their territory hard enough, but through the scene in Tadjilod teashop, there describe the general picture of women’s role that has always been and traditionally domesticated by patriarchic system. The exotic treasure which searched by intellectuals from the modern culture stay behind the blue-frame window with closed-curtain that belong to Malek, the dying old lady whom inform to be 100 or 150 years old (referring to Behzad conversation with Farzad, little schoolboy and future intellectual, who appear to be Behzad’s connection with the village in his effort to reach his goal), and was a modern poem on the shadows of death. Take a look on this rhyme of Forough Farokhzad’s poem title The Wind Will Carry Us: “…as waiting for the birth of rain, and after that silence….” The event about dying behind the blue window that become the long waits in the film, making Behzad to acquaint and entered the heart of traditional culture location and made the city men belief’s shifted.  The occurrence of cultural clash in the film describe through the process of communication in the traditional domain. Behzad has never managed to build a good communication in that place. Farzad, who have a job to help Behzad always performs his refusal. Like for over and over Behzad ask him to bring milk, and when they have different expectation on the condition of Malek’s health whom no other than Farzad’s grandmother. Behzad also has to experience the mirror-communication when performing face-to-face traditional communication. The communication between Behzad with the lady-owner of the place and the crews he living with perform through the mirror, and Behzad could not recall his lady-owner when they facing each other. Almost every conversations of Behzad and the people afore mentions always disconnected by his cell-phone’s ring. He had to go uphill (the cemetery) by his car every time to find a better signal to communicate with his superior in Tehran. The communication tool has to make its own way in performing the act of communication by reach the focal point of death in Shiah Dareh village that even ready to welcoming the emergence of globalization of communication era. And in the effort of making the communication channel the modern intellectual has to walk the bottom of communication pyramid made by the director of the film, pace backward to the myths of communication which lived in the traditional social order. The channel which materialized in the pyramid of communication contain of humanly essence that symbolize with a piece of human bone from the past which gave by the digger of telecommunication channel in the cemetery ground, Yossef, to Behzad. He put the bone in his car dashboard and took it along with his mobility in Shiah Dareh village. Slowly there implicit meanings of destruction of the traditional communication in the film, where rooms in place that Behzad and his crews in the village has turn into the rooms for pseudo modern communication for it was never materialized the communicant in each conversation. The film tend to elevate the modernity history of Iran, where the film itself was made in the edge of the turning of twentieth century to 21st century –the century of globalize communication that slowly but sure manage to damage the concept of traditional communication, and also refer to Malek age, the object of Behzad search whom predict to had born in the turning of nineteenth century to twentieth century, the age of modernization. Say that Malek might had born in 1849, where at the time Persia was indulgently spread the Persianization to the whole area of the Middle East, including South Asia and Turkey. There implicit the meanings that society will not able to detach the fast growing modernization from century to century, leaving behind the path of tradition which still alive in traditional community, and therefore will be the object of exoticism for modern culture. As for the other way around, the domain of traditional communication keep themselves in restraint for it has certain political secrets. The communication myths describe as shadow of communication with ersatz character, which also the concept of modern communication.  The unique friendship between Behzad and Yossef, the channel digger in cemetery ground, sent us to the knowledge of the myth in communication. This happened because of the intellectual from the modern area communicate with Yossef who live in mythology itself. They communicate the origin of a legend. The communication took place in the cemetery ground, a ‘pilgrim to the ancient mythology.’ And little by little there was a shifting of belief in the mind of this modern city man, a spiritual experience for it has the shadows of death in the communication he had done with the villagers of Shiah Dareh. When Behzad met a man of his age who appeared to be a teacher (intellectual) in the village, we’re not merely witnessing the friction between modern and traditional culture in the context of Iran as a nation, but also the other friction in the traditional domain in the country, which felt by the person who has higher education and sensed that death ceremony tradition in his village is something of a cruel fact, and above all there was an economic factor to support the ritual. This local intellectual point of view is an impact of modernity toward traditional culture. The film also shows delicate infiltration of beliefs by modern culture which represented by Behzad to the traditional culture. While the location of culture has no ability to dialectic action, which showed through the innocent of Farzad who couldn’t answer the examination query on the matter of the judgment day. Behzad gave the answer after previously playing with words on the facts about heaven and hell. There was a conversation about death between the different cultures and here we found the fact of cultural contradiction which could be interpreted as conversation between two beliefs in two different location of culture. Then we were introduce to the works of literature originates from the ancient and modern Iran, but the introduction came out from inside the ground. This elevated a question: are these literature works also contain with certain political secret so it can’t easily recognize in the open surface? The first work comes from Forough Farokhzad (modern Iranian woman-poet, notably use by the feminists), as the film is giving title with, The Wind Will Carry Us. The poem talked about the shadows of death and recite by Behzad to Zaenab, Yossef lover, in the dark underground cow stable. This was, however, emerge politically impact to the nation which base on Islamic law. And we can see how the poem contradicts the land of its birth. It shows us critiques on traditional culture, which often brings gender inequality. In other word we have seen Forough Farokhzad being pull out of her contemplation, for her work which stay firm in the modernity of Tehran must implement in the traditional domain. In the same scene also recites another poem from Farokhzad with title ‘Hadieh/The Gift’, that tell the story about a woman who only make friends with darkness. We can feel the spirit of optimism for the woman side by side with their limited access, where the dark underground is milk cow stable that represent fertility and lives. There a scene where the woman ask the man who recite her poems, about the education of the woman-poet. The modern man gave her the description to intellectuality through the biography of Forough Farokhzad. Although the description on the path to intellectuality is express in the darkness of the underground, the spirit of optimism, as the director clearly stated, articulate by a man. If the filmmaker was an Iranian woman, will the director let the poet come by herself to the dark milk cow stable without company of a man?  The other work is from the ancient Iran: ‘The Love of Shirin’ legend, which entail in the conversation between Behzad and the channel digger in the cemetery ground, Yossef. The legend is about lovers, Shirin (the wife of a prince) and her secret man, Farhad. In the conversation between Behzad and Yossef this man was a man who built city of Biston. But The love of Shirin tale has many versions and all the time made by men. What we see here is the contestation of the gender issue by using Shiah Dareh as the field. We also can recognize the Rubaiyat of Omar Qayyam, the ancient Persian poet, whom appears in several discussions between the actors of the film. But to the contrary with the work of Farokhzad which talk about imprisonment and the shadows of death, the work of Omar Qayyam which recognize in the film are drawing the pictures of the beauty of life in the present time. The plot of the film constructs communication pyramid with poetry as its base, and the concept of global communication as the top of it. Both concept become infrastructure and superstructure of the pyramid and connected with the domain of traditional communication through the hole of traditional poetry which can be found at the top of global communication at the cemetery ground, and the hole of modern poetry in the hole of fertility. The film took an end with records of mourners using still camera, to replace film, where the duration of event of Malek death ceremony represented by the face of women mourners freeze in one still frame. Remembering the birth of still camera that emerge before film camera, we can interpret this as the ultimate needs of modern intellectual to stepping down the bottom of cultural pyramid to gives the meaning of treasure which he has found in the different form because of the shifting view of his beliefs. This is of course documentation activity using the medium of modern technology, recording traditional event with the whole conflicts and frictions in the traditional location of culture through the eyes of modern culture. Other possibility about this scene of a still camera is, refer to Roland Barthes, that still image is the essence of a motion picture. Because of the perpetual character of photography, then it describe that Behzad only taking pictures of faces of the mourners, which also describe in the poems of Forough Farokhzad. Finally Behzad return the bone from the past to nature, throwing it to the river which flow crossing goats that eats grass in the bank of the river. It brings us to the comprehension to choose the present rather than the past. They tell me she is as beautiful as a Houri from heaven! Yet I say That the juice of the vine is better Prefer the present to these fine promises Even a drum sounds melodious from afar… Prefer the present … |
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