Based on a short story by Houshang Golshiri, this film centers on mysterious and chilling events that take place in a village. A group of superstitious inhabitants have erected a scarecrow for protection but soon find themselves terrorized by it. Made at the end of the Shah’s reign, the film offers a metaphorical reflection on power relations — how people create their own idols who turn around to terrorize them.
A director of a television series on the history of cinema, who has been grappling with the screenplay of his first feature film, receives an assignment to oversee the installation of a television relay station in a remote region of Zahedan province. He has already hired Turkmen tribespeople for his film and selected his filming location. Meanwhile his wife, who is working on her Ph.D. dissertation about the Mongol invasion of Iran, attempts to dissuade him from accepting the assignment. One night, while working on his history of the cinema series, the director fantasizes a diegetic world that consists of clever juxtapositions of his different worlds: the history of cinema, the history of the mongol invasion, his own film idea and his imminent assignment to the desert.
A colonel, who has two daughters working as nurses in Tehran, retires to a small city. The man marries a teacher from the provinces and goes with her to Tehran. However, he finds that his daughters have changed. The elder daughter eventually commits suicide and the younger daughter goes through an ill-fated marriage. The father, observing the problems of his children, goes insane and is confined to an asylum. For its political and social content, the film was banned by the government for several years.
Ali and his father go from their poor neighborhood in the outskirts of the city to a hospital so that Ali's father can be treated for his sickness. However since they have no money, Ali starts to work for Dr. Sameri who deals in blood.
Prince Ehtejab, one of the last remaining heirs of the Qajar royal family, is suffering from tuberculosis, which he knows is fatal. He spends his last days alone in the magnificent rooms of his wintry palace, from where he recollects the glory days of his ancestors as well as days of degradation. Among the latter are the gruesome manner in which his cruel grandfather murdered his mother and brother, and the way that he himself caused the death of his wife.
