A single mother struggles to come to terms with a devastating injustice that has shaken the lives of herself and her daughter in contemporary Iran in Ballad of a White Cow, which played in competition at this year’s Berlinale before screening at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, who also stars in the lead role, Ballad of a White Cow charts wrongs both large and small in Iran, and will recall the work of director Asghar Farhadi; this film, however, is comparatively subdued, more interested in showcasing the effects of injustice on everyday people rather than becoming a social polemic.
In Ballad of a White Cow, Moghadam stars as Mina, an assembly line worker in a dairy factory raising deaf daughter Bita (Avin Poor Raoufi) by herself following the execution of her husband by the state. Stuck in depression, Mina hasn’t been able to bring herself to tell Bita what happened to her father, while her late husband’s brother (Pouria Rahimi Sam) tries to get her to move on with some unwanted advances.
But Mina springs to emotional life with the revelation by officials that her husband was innocent of the murder for which he was executed; the real killer, who had testified against her husband, has come forward and confessed to the act, while begging Mina for forgiveness.
To the state, this was an unfortunate incident but nevertheless “God’s will,” as Mina is repeatedly told. They’ll give her the price of one adult male in compensation, though it may take years for those monetary wheels to be set in motion.
For Mina, of course, this isn’t enough. She wants some kind of official recognition of the mistake, and takes out an advertisement in the local newspaper targeting the judges in her husband’s case and seeking a personal apology. Even that small gesture, however, seems like an impossible request.
Meanwhile, a stranger shows up at Mina’s doorstep. Reza (Alireza Sani Far) introduces himself as an old friend of Mina’s husband who borrowed money some time back, and has now come to repay it. He offers Mina some additional aid, and after his visit causes Mina’s landlord to kick her out, he offers her a new home in one of his properties.
Reza, of course, has his own hidden motives, and while the climax of Ballad of a White Cow hinges on those being revealed to Mina in a way that feels manufactured, there’s a surprising amount of depth to his own storyline, to the point where Reza becomes as sympathetic a protagonist as Mina.
Ballad of a White Cow is not an exposé on the death sentence or the Iranian justice system, but rather a pointed example of how a broken legal system both devastates the people it is meant to protect, and weighs upon those tasked with upholding it. When a system can cause such grievous harm without repercussion, there are no winners on either side.
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