Animal instinct

Gaav inspires reflection on widely held, and poorly judged, ideas of what it is to be and appear and behave 'human'

Elsewhere in the world, away from the Indian context where cattle are zealously politicised, the relationship between man and cow has made for fascinating cinema.

Despite being universally acknowledged by critics as the mainspring of Iranian art cinema’s New Wave, Dariush Mehrjui’s Gaav (The Cow) is simply not known enough. I revisited this all-time favourite last Sunday, which also happened to be the birth anniversary of Ezzatolah Entezami, the Germany-trained lead actor who made his screen debut with the film at age 45. Critics will further agree few actors in the history of cinema have evoked as much sadness in