DOL – The Valley of Tambourines

More eloquent than any of the stagy vignettes pinned to it, the immense mountain landscape that connects Turkey, Iraq and Iran becomes a parched, breathtaking dramatic canvas for this uncertain musing on the Kurdish people. As Azad (Nazmi Kirik) flees to Iraqi after military violence shatters his wedding, Kilometer Zero director Hiner Saleem bluntly roadblocks his journey with various symbolic characters, from a woman kidnapped by Iraqi army to guerrillas fighting the Iranians. Angelopoulos DoP Andreas Sinanos lenses with an elemental sense of scale that borders on the surreal, but the deadpan drama simply can’t match its impact.