When your own, Western, cosseted and safe children start moaning about not having the latest 'must-have', play them this. They'll soon shut up, I promise!
From the moment I first watched this enigmatically titled film on TV many years ago, I knew it was to become an absolute favourite of mine. Now, at last, I've got it on DVD and can watch it again (& again).
There's something very resolutely matter-of-fact in these people's harshness and the extents to which they have to go to address them. It seems ironic - and a bit ridiculous here in the West, where we like a a drink or two, that liquor is not drunk by people, but force fed to the pack mules and horses to numb them enough to make dangerous black-market trips over the snowbound mountain and into Iraq.
The main characters are the children, totally without whimsy or sentiment that simply try and make do without parents. That this includes a severely handicapped boy who not only needs daily medication but an operation to prolong his life - and their inventive means to try and fund that is bound to fire our emotions and one admires with both pride and pity.
This is definitely one of those very rare (& indeed, it is rare, i.e difficult to see/get hold of) that WILL affect you and probably far more than you'd dare realise. Ten out of 10.
From the moment I first watched this enigmatically titled film on TV many years ago, I knew it was to become an absolute favourite of mine. Now, at last, I've got it on DVD and can watch it again (& again).
There's something very resolutely matter-of-fact in these people's harshness and the extents to which they have to go to address them. It seems ironic - and a bit ridiculous here in the West, where we like a a drink or two, that liquor is not drunk by people, but force fed to the pack mules and horses to numb them enough to make dangerous black-market trips over the snowbound mountain and into Iraq.
The main characters are the children, totally without whimsy or sentiment that simply try and make do without parents. That this includes a severely handicapped boy who not only needs daily medication but an operation to prolong his life - and their inventive means to try and fund that is bound to fire our emotions and one admires with both pride and pity.
This is definitely one of those very rare (& indeed, it is rare, i.e difficult to see/get hold of) that WILL affect you and probably far more than you'd dare realise. Ten out of 10.