Cinema
The Garden of Stones
باغ سنگی
Parviz Kimiavi · 1976
Synopsis
Darvish Khan, a deaf and mute shepherd of the desert, dreams that he is sitting on a large stone; on waking, he brings one back to his hut, then starts gathering all the ones he finds and hanging them with wire from the branches of dead trees. His garden becomes a place of pilgrimage for the neighbouring peasants, who come there to sacrifice animals and ask for miracles, while his family tries to live off it. Then his eldest son is called up for military service.
Context
The film starts from a real fact: Darvish Khan Esfandiarpour, a shepherd from Kerman province, really did build a garden of stones near Sirjan, it is said after the land reform took part of his land from him, and he plays himself in it. The author mixes document and fiction without ever drawing the boundary, and puts himself on screen in it. He returned to the site in 2004 for a second film, Le Vieil Homme et son jardin de pierres; the garden, maintained by the shepherd's son, still receives visitors.
Who it is for
A Persian-language film of about eighty minutes, whose hero does not speak. It is worth knowing that documentary and fiction are never separated in it.
Prizes and reception
Silver Bear at the Berlin festival in 1976; twentieth in a ranking of the best Iranian films drawn up by fourteen filmmakers for the Fribourg festival in 2014.