The Cow (1969)
The Cow is an film about a poor villager who goes mad after losing the only thing he loves.
When Hassan washes his cow he giggles and sings to her; he crowns her with a string of bells; he eats hay with her. He is a Mashhadi, meaning he is an honored pilgrim, and consequently is owed respect from all his neighbors. But once the cow dies, they lie to Hassan and try to fool him into believing she ran away. Deprived of the right to grieve properly, he turns into his cow. Just as you or I would.
There are many holes in the village. Like this hole, from which drinks emerge:
Or this hole, from which to yell at other villagers for information:
Or this hole, for observing madness at a safe distance:
These are holes into the social unconscious.
Mashhadi Hassan is like King Lear, but Lear's kingdom is a cow, and Lear's daughters are a whole village of duplicitous neighbors. There's even a Fool, but he's just around to get slapped around and tossed into a well.
By the end, the villagers stop pretending to help Hassan, and switch to subjecting the cow-man to a savage beating.
You start acting like a cow, and people will treat you like a cow.
The fear of the Boulouri (the godless thieves who live next to the village) is the psycho-social lubricant which puts life into every action in the film. Hassan's fear of the Boulouri is exploited by the villagers.
It's fascinating that the screenwriter, Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi, was arrested in 1953 after the coup against Mosaddeq, was tortured in 1974 by the Pahlavi government, and then had to flee Iran for Paris in 1981 entirely after his friend Saeed Soltanpour was executed by the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, the director, Dariush Mehrjui, remained in Iran and stayed active, but labored under soul-crushing censorship for his entire career. In 2022, in front of a cinema full of people, he revolted against his censors and said:
Listen to me, I can't take it anymore. I want to fight back. Kill me, do whatever you want with me... destroy me, but I want my right.
Then he and his wife were stabbed to death in 2023.
In 1969, Sa'edi and Mehrjui did not yet know how encowified they were to become...
Maybe we can ignore all this, and imagine that we are always Hassan washing his cow...
To clean her hide is to know perfect bliss,
I stoop each day to munch with her on hay;
The village folk know much but don't know this.
"Mashti Hassan is mad in love," they say.
An evil thief, who hates Allah, has shown,
To steal my love, and throw her to the wells.
I'll sleep with her tonight, atop damp stone,
No man shall cut her string enhorned with bells.
The worst has come. For end of days, I weep,
And bash my head against the walls of clay;
Hassan has left, or sold me off for cheap,
And will not come, no matter how I pray.
I'm lashed and beat; half-dead in mud I bow.
I'm not Hassan; I am Hassan's sweet cow.