Gaav, or I Wished I Were the Cow

1001 Movies You Must See before You Die needs a subtitle or a disclaimer: **some of which you just need to know about before you die**

And this film is one of those you could do with just knowing about.

There is a cultural and historical significance to Gaav. As the book tells us: "Rumor has it that after seeing The Cow, the Ayatollah Khomeini opined that perhaps there might be a place for filmmaking in the Islamic Republic, thus creating at least the theoretical possibility for . .  Iranian cinema." The book also tells us, "Financed largely by the Shah's government, the movie's image of Iranian backwardness and poverty so outraged its producers that they forced the filmmakers to tack on a disclaimer stating that the events depicted occurred long before the current regime."

So, yes, this film is probably important in that it marks a point in Iranian history that is important to film. BUT, and that is a huge capital lettered underlined bolded and italicized "but," something marking a point in history is extraordinarily different from that thing being good and/or worthy of my time much less being declared something I need to see before I die. Believe me, a quick synopsis and a little more background information would have sufficed and, actually, would have been more useful.