He has taken the film from the National Film Archive of Iran and has handed it over to the Pishgaman-e Cinama-ye Aria Laboratory to do the necessary restoration of the movie, the Persian service of MNA reported on Monday.
Made in 1969, “The Cow” is the 74-year-old Mehrjuii’s second film. The Film is based on “The Mourners of Bayal”, a collection of short related stories by celebrated Iranian writer Gholamhossein Saedi.
The film is about Masht Hassan, who owns the only cow in a remote and desolate village. While he is away, his cow, whom he treats as his own child, dies. Knowing the relationship between Masht Hassan and his cow, the villagers hastily dispose of the corpse, and when Masht Hassan returns, they tell him that his cow ran away. Devastated by the news, Masht Hassan starts to spend all his time in the barn eating hay and slowly begins to believe that he has become the cow.
“The Cow” won the International Critics Prize of the Venice Film Festival in 1971. It was the first award the Iranian motion picture industry ever received in an international event.
The film was financed largely by the government of former Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The producers were aghast at the finished product as they felt that the film portrayed Iran as a completely backward country. The film was only allowed to be released with a disclaimer attached stating that the events depicted happened long before the regime existing at that time came to power.
