It’s difficult to find words that express the momentum behind Abbas Kiarostami’s film The Wind Will Carry Us. The initial viewing of this film sparked hours of confusion and contemplation. The movie lacked every essential characteristic of modern film. The only element The Wind Will Carry Us had in common with Hollywood was perhaps the camera. It seems strange in the face of other films, but the lack of plot, energy and enthusiasm gives character to this movie. The punch this film packs comes from the distance it is from the average film.

The Wind Will Carry Us forces the viewer to slow down. The pace of life in Abbas’s dreamy white village becomes the pace of the film. There are no skyscrapers, there are no stock traders: there is no global pressure to run through the film. There is nothing but white brick, farmland and tea. The movie plays as a reminder of what life used to be before the speed of the globalized world.

In my opinion a constant search for meaning in this film can ruin it. The beauty in this art originates from its utter simplicity. I believe the point of this film lies in its lack of plot. A doctor makes note in The Wind Will Carry Us that he loves his job because he gets to observe nature in his travels, not because of his riches. I believe Abbas Kiarostami’s film is telling us to slow down and enjoy life for what is once was.