AllMovie

As he did with his first feature film Paper Airplanes, Iranian director Farhad Mehranfar draws upon his early experiences as a documentary-maker to create a work that is an ethnographically interesting and dreamlike look at an ancient tribe's view of the cycle of life and death. The nomadic tribe lives in Iran's Talesh mountains and depends on sheep for its livelihood The story begins in winter during the annual deer hunt. Amidst the bloodshed, a woman bears a son. The tale jumps ahead several years, and the mother tells her son a story that begins with winter's hardships and continues through the year, with each season represented by a different stage of caring for the sheep and harvesting their wool. As the tale progresses, the woman answers the boy's questions about his late father, a mysterious man who came to his mother one winter after the harsh weather destroyed his entire clan.