Rating: 5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 11/52 | a film in the Saturday Matinee series “Observations on Film Art”
Eight-year-old kids yell and play while they wait for their teacher to arrive. Once the teacher arrives, he chastises the kids for making a racket. He also scolds Nematzadeh for repeatedly forgetting to use his notebook for his homework. Ahmad, who sits beside Nematzadeh, watches as the teacher rips up Nematzadeh’s homework, driving the child to tears.
Nematzadeh’s cousin, who came in late from the long-off village of Poshteh, reveals he had the notebook and that Nematzadeh left it at his house by mistake. The teacher uses Ahmad’s homework as an example of what to do, then threatens to expel Nematzadeh if he forgets his notebook again.
After school, Ahmad and Nematzadeh run outside. Nematzadeh falls, dropping his notebook. Ahmad helps him up and checks his knees for scrapes.
When Ahmad gets home, his mother gives him chores to do before he can do his homework. No matter which order he does it in, his. mother punishes him.
When Ahmad finally gets to his homework, he realizes that when Nematzadeh fell, he picked up both notebooks. He tries to explain the situation and potential expulsion to his mother. She thinks he’s lying and refuses to let him out. So, when she goes inside, Ahmad runs outside to find Poshteh and to return Nematzadeh’s notebook to him.
This movie is the most empathetic rendition of a Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
In one case, we see the labyrinth of discipline and expectations that keep a child from succeeding. As we come across children, we contrast their treatment in school versus at home. Ahmad is a star student at school, yet his mother only sees him as a lying troublemaker. The teacher scolds Morteza, who tries to lie down in class because of a hurt back, while at home we see him performing back-breaking chores.
In another case, we see the puzzle of getting to Nematzadeh’s house. Ahmad gets directions from people that don’t line up with reality. Or, when he asks for help, he gets ignored. He finds clues that lead to dead ends. Despite his best efforts, the right thing is always out of reach.
For example, Ahmad’s grandfather tells Ahmad to grab his cigarettes. When Ahmad goes to do it, the grandfather reveals to his friend that he already has his cigarettes:
— We want the kid to be brought up properly. When I was a kid, my dad would give me a penny every week and a beating every other week. He might sometimes forget my pocket money, but he'd never forget to give me a beating. — What if he doesn't obey, even after a beating? — In society, a child must have discipline and learn to do what his father says the first time… If he grows up lazy, he's of no use to society. — But tell me this: Suppose the kid did nothing wrong. What would you do? — I'd find an excuse to give him a beating every other week.
The difference between Abbas Kiarostami and Kafka is that Abbas Kiarostami does not conclude that one must give up. Instead, one continues asking for an answer, until the question with an answer arrives.
The movie sometimes cuts sets into flat surfaces reminiscent of side-scrolling video games. Ahmad moves through the house, upstairs, into various rooms. Every movement requires an additional sub-movement or a berating for doing it wrong. When he runs through the countryside, a hill will have a zig-zag path that he will follow upward.
I love this movie so much. I felt it all — I want to watch it again as soon as possible.
"Where is the friend's house?" asked the horseman just at dawn. The Heavens paused. A wayfarer took the bright branch from his lips, conferred it on the darkness of the sands, pointed with his finger to a poplar tree and said, "Just before that tree there is a garden path greener than God's dreams. In it, there is love as wide as the blue wings of true friendship. You go on to the end of the path that takes up again just beyond maturity, then turn toward the flower of loneliness. Two steps before the flower, stop at the eternal fountain of earthly myth. There a transparent terror will seize you, and in the sincerity of the streaming heavens you will hear a rustling. High up in a pine tree, you will see a child who will lift a chick out of a nest of light. Ask him, 'Where is the friend's house?'"</i> — Address, Sohrab Sepehri