Direction: Behtash Sanaeeha, Maryam Moghaddam
Country: Iran
The heartbreaking story depicted in Ballad of a White Cow is anchored in mourning, resilience, remorse, and moral dilemma. Written and directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, who also stars, the film is a quietly shattering meditation on capital punishment and the condition of women in ultra-rigid Iran.
The topics couldn’t have been clearer and more subtlety depicted. The camera turns to Mina Eghbali (Moghadam), an anguished widow who learns that the execution of her husband, wrongly accused of murder, was a mistake. The state offers her financial compensation for the error, but Mina, whose grieving eyes convey an infinite sadness, still demands a formal apology from the responsible judges, wishing to make them accountable for her loss.
This brave widow, who works in a dairy factory, decided to live alone with her 7-year-old deaf daughter (Avin Poor Raoufi), but that's also a problem. She's being sued by her father-in-law, who wants the guardianship of the child. For being a widow, she’s forced to move out of her Tehran apartment, but a stranger called Reza (Alireza Sani Far), saying to be a former friend of her husband, miraculously appears in her life, saving her from trouble.
This tale of grief, injustice and reprisal, decays in the last quarter, just to pack a punch with an unexpected final twist. The emotions are firmly kept in check throughout a story that brings enough to the table as another heinous example of wrongful conviction in the Iranian judicial history. Moghadam carries the film on her shoulders, assuring that Ballad of a White Cow becomes a pertinent and beautifully acted piece of work in its own right.
