The Cow

Dariush Mehrjui's The Cow is not just the story of a man who loses his beloved cow, but also is a film that expresses the devastating issues that coincide with mental illness.  The film The Cow is based on the short stories entitled The Mourners of Bayal by Gholam-Hossein Saedi. Saedi's classical training in psychiatry influenced his writing of The Mourners of Bayal, he was able to through his writings, show the psychological issues a small village in Iran may face.  The characters suffer with irrational fears that are devastating.  They try to use ritual and religious elements to control the struggles they face, sadly the villagers do not realize that what they are doing is using a false sense of control to handle their struggles. 

The treatment of the mentally ill within the small village is an even bigger issue than the ignorance of the villagers. The mentally delayed man who was shown throughout the film was treated rather poorly. When asked if he would tell Hassan about the death of his cow, the man obviously did not understand what was going on (based on his contradictory answers).  The villagers decide to tie the man up so he can not "spill the beans" to Hassan.  Such herendous treatment of a mentally ill man is appalling by today's standards. Sadly, this was not too far off from how society treated the mentally ill even up to the 1970's.  Many people suffering with illness were locked away from society.  The villagers use the barbaric method of tying the ill man within a room as a way to combat the ever so obvious situation at hand. The villagers use the tying up and hiding of the ill man as a way to gain control. Such an act is futile because Hassan would never fall for the story the villagers would come to tell him. This is another way the villagers try to control the situation at hand. Their false sense of control may actually be more devastating to Hassan because he will never truly know what happens to his beloved cow. 

When Hassan finds out that his cow has "run away" he begins to distance himself from the villagers.  What the villagers think is a moment of distress is actually the beginnings of a mental breakdown.  When a severe mental breakdown occurs the sufferer can have symptoms that include delusions (strong irrational beliefs), hallucinations (seeing, hearing or feeling something that isn't actually there), depression as well as many other possible symptoms.  Hassan's delusions included that he was becoming a cow.  In society today we would handle this by temporarily institutionalizing him, the use of psychotherapy and the use several types of medications to make the delusions go away (many people who have suffered from psychotically breaks have unregulated levels of hormones/chemicals which can sometimes be causing the issues. Example: schizophrenia has been linked to a unusually high level of dopamine).  The villagers decided that the best way to handle Hassan's mental illness was to tie him up with rope and attempt to take him to a nearby town for assistance. 

The tying of Hassan is previously reflected with the tying of Hassan's dead cow, he is becoming his cow and will soon receive the same fate.  Hassan's descent into madness besides being theatrical also serves another purpose.  His madness lends itself to show the poor treatment of the mentally ill. Rather than being treated like a man like he was in the beginning, by the end he is treated like an animal.  He is treated the same way that many people with mental illness have been treated, as sub-humans as not having worth, as being no better than an animal. The death of Hassan's cow was too much for the villagers to handle, so they tried to take control of the situation the best way they knew how. The same happens when the villagers try to handle the problems brought about by Hassan. Hassan is beaten by the villagers because his mental illness was too much for them to handle. He eventually gets away from them but dies soon after.