This movie was a small, powerful gem. I thought the long review by didier was very good, captured the feeling. A very fine film.
There was a sound heard occasionally as the boy and his father moved through the woods, some sort of animal. I don't know what it was, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Sheesh! Anyone know what that was?
ChuckD
It was most likely a wolf. Wolves are often seen in the forest in that area in Iran.
There are also bears.
Even 15 years ago a tiger was spotted.
Nope. It wasn't a wolf, it wasn't a bear, it wasn't a tiger. The next time you watch the movie, listen *carefully*. No wolf, bear or tiger made *that* sound.
ChuckD
From what I heard they took a bird call and slowed it down to make it more upsetting and frightening. If you notice the innocent, and in tune with nature, Mohammed hears the peaceful and pleasant bird calls throughout the movie and the out of tune father hears the menacing call. Kinda makes sense to have them both be bird calls. But only Majidi and the crew will know what that noise is, i guess...
shareIts the sound of DEVIL!
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-Have you found Jesus yet,Gump?
-I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for him,sir.
I think the scary animal in the forest was a hyena. There are hyenas in Iran and they live in a wide range of habitat including forest.
In this video you can hear hyenas "laughing" at about 45 seconds that sounds to me like the animal sound in the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdoa7T2RdzE&feature=related
Hyenas are dangerous, wild animals and any defenseless person in the wild would naturally be afraid to hear them.
[deleted]
I did an internet search on hyenas to see in which areas they live.
This from Wikipedia:
***Hyena -- The Hyaenidae is a mammalian family of order Carnivora. The Hyaenidae family, native to both African and Asian continents....***
This from animalpicturesarchive.com :
***Striped Hyena Habitat -- From Morocco and Senegal to Tanzania, across Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, all the way to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even into Eastern India as well as southern India. Striped hyenas inhabit open country, as well as the forests of India and the seashore, scavenging on animals which wash up from the sea.***
I say that to me it seems like it's a hyena sound and it probably is, but on the other hand, the script of the movie, written by the director, is online at his website and it does not indicate exactly what the sound is.
You can find the script at www.cinemajidi.com
I was going to copy and paste long descriptions of action from the script, but it has a copyright warning on it and I thought I better not do it. The point is, whenever we hear that "frightening sound," the writer/director has written "a horrible sound" or "a terrifying sound."
If you like this movie, I think you'd find the script really interesting to read. The one sound in the forest that we hear the most, the clicking sound, is in fact in the script as woodpeckers, even though I don't recall actually seeing woodpeckers in the movie, just hearing them. The script has lots and lots of descriptions of sounds.
It's not a real noise. It represents God. The main story line is very much like the book of Job in the old testament.
-- henry
My idea, is that the father was an Iranian Army veteran of the Iran/Iraq war of the late 1980's. And in the severe stresses of combat, he contracted a bad case of PTSD. Such a condition could also otherwise explain, what seemed to me, his often erratic and irrational behavior. That's his backstory, the best I can figure.
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