Recent Iranian cinema is notable for experimenting with new ways of storytelling. Mohsen Makhamalbaf used an absolutely new and complicated storytelling method in Moment of Innocence (made in same year as Gabbeh) through dismantling the boundary between documentary and fiction, and overturning time. In Gabbeh, Makhmalbaf experiments with yet another new narrative mode. For Iranian nomads, now diminishing in numbers, the gabbeh (′carpet′) is life itself. Stories from oral tradition are woven into the carpet. A gabbeh is never reproduced because a story is not repeated twice. The legendary tale of the gabbeh is moved to the screen in a lyrical and original mode of expression. The film weaves together the stories of a woman, Gabbeh, whose father opposes her marriage to the man she loves, an uncle who wanders about to find his songbird wife, and the old couple who listen to Gabbeh′s story. Gabbeh recounts the birth, love, marriages, and death of the nomads while the story is rendered through the images of the carpet in a film that focuses on the relationship between man and nature. Combining legend and reality, and song and poem in his own words, Makhmalbaf′s colorful style creates a film of "Iranian poetic realism." (Kim Ji-Seok)