Kiarostami's film of plainspoken poetry is blatantly allegorical in its messages yet mysterious and marvelous in its rhythms. A man identified as an engineer arrives in Siah Dareh, a Kurdish village growing out of the side of a hill. “If anyone asks, say we're looking for treasure,” he advises his unseen crew; in fact they are here to record a mourning ritual, for a death expected any day. But in Siah Dareh, nothing moves in a straight line, and the urgent expectations of the urban observer give way to the unpredictable flow of village life. In a Kiarostamian joke as dry as the hills, the only place with cell phone reception is the cemetery. People spontaneously recite poetry, and a country doctor arrives on his motorbike with advice: “prefer the present.” But in the end the words blow away on the wind, while the images carry us.