The Ballad of Tara
Director: Bahram Beyzaie
1979 / 102min / DCP
Directed, written, edited, produced, set- and costume-designed by Beyzaie, this “ballad” is a melic ode to the willful widow of the title (Susan Taslimi) who, on encountering a ghost in the woods near her village, heeds his request to help him in returning to the land of the dead with the help of a sword among her father’s effects—but, upon being reunited with the blade, he finds his love for Tara binds him to remain among the living. Steeped in Persian folklore, myth, and classical literature, Beyzaie’s labor of love finished shooting as the Islamist takeover of 1979 and its censors—none too friendly to a film with an indomitable woman at its center—took hold, and had its only official screening at Cannes the following year, but, like its heroine, it has abided against impossible odds.
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