Abbas Kiarostami's most mainstream film, "Where Is My Friend's Home?" watches as eight year old Ahmed sneaks away from home and embarks on a quest to return a tattered notebook to a classmate. The classmate, young Mohammed Nematzedah, lives in another village. Ahmed never finds Mohammed's home, and so completes his friend's homework so that Mohammed won't get punished at school. "Good boy," a teacher says the following day. She's referring to Mohammed and his homework. Kiarostami's patting Ahmed on the back.
It's a cute tale. Ahmed's our precious little adventurer, small and fragile, who braves unfamiliar locations and strange characters as he struggles to complete what seems to him to be a daunting task. Everyday objects and situations become scary in his eyes, but he doesn't give up. Kiarostami juxtaposes Ahmed's quiet perseverance with the various oblivious and distant adults who surround him. It's a morality play: "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you", whatever the costs.
Doors and doorways are a repeated motif throughout the film. The film's sustained opening shot is that of a classroom door, and similar references, images and conversations relating to entrances and doorways permeate the entire film. It's a film about openings, portals, possibilities, all of which clash with the seemingly locked down lives of the film's impoverished older characters, and the constraints imposed on them – particularly females – by Islamic society. One sequence features an elderly carpenter proudly showing Ahmed a wooden door that he built. Iron doors, he bemoans (recall the metal door which opens the film), are putting him out of business; the shutting down of portals and possibilities. But Ahmed quietly jumps these obstacles. Meanwhile, the film's adults, though they profess to be teachers and guardians, are all cold and twisted. It is up to Ahmed to forge his own path without them.
The film strongly resembles prior, seminal neorealist works ("The 400 Blows" - Truffaut is a big influence, also De Sica - "Bitter Rice", "Stromboli", "Bicycle Thieves", "Vidas Secas", "Umberto D", even later, slightly more self-conscious films like "Kes"), most of which sanctified the impoverished, focused on the poverty-stricken and wept over little children and their kind relationships with animals and beasts of burden.
Aesthetically the film is (deceptively) simple, minimalist, but consistently interesting. Kiarostami's camera work and shifting compositions are beautiful, tracking with Ahmed, picking up bits of conversation, pausing to eavesdrop on others and packed with blunt sight gags (eg- Ahmed goes up a narrow alley, a cow comes down the opposite way, blocking him). In terms of flaws, Kiarostami fawns over Ahmed too much, salivating over his blank expressions and exploiting his cute, wide-eyed fragility. It's the Walt Disney school of emotional manipulation. But of course this is largely why the film has quickly become a classic outside of Iran.
8.5/10 – Worth one viewing. For similar fare see the aforementioned films. Also see "Children of Heaven", "Summer at Grandpas", "The White Balloon" and the filmographies of Ozu and Tati. I don't quite trust these stripped down, cutesy, ultra-sentimental tales, but if that's what you're looking for, these represent the cream of the crop.
It's a cute tale. Ahmed's our precious little adventurer, small and fragile, who braves unfamiliar locations and strange characters as he struggles to complete what seems to him to be a daunting task. Everyday objects and situations become scary in his eyes, but he doesn't give up. Kiarostami juxtaposes Ahmed's quiet perseverance with the various oblivious and distant adults who surround him. It's a morality play: "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you", whatever the costs.
Doors and doorways are a repeated motif throughout the film. The film's sustained opening shot is that of a classroom door, and similar references, images and conversations relating to entrances and doorways permeate the entire film. It's a film about openings, portals, possibilities, all of which clash with the seemingly locked down lives of the film's impoverished older characters, and the constraints imposed on them – particularly females – by Islamic society. One sequence features an elderly carpenter proudly showing Ahmed a wooden door that he built. Iron doors, he bemoans (recall the metal door which opens the film), are putting him out of business; the shutting down of portals and possibilities. But Ahmed quietly jumps these obstacles. Meanwhile, the film's adults, though they profess to be teachers and guardians, are all cold and twisted. It is up to Ahmed to forge his own path without them.
The film strongly resembles prior, seminal neorealist works ("The 400 Blows" - Truffaut is a big influence, also De Sica - "Bitter Rice", "Stromboli", "Bicycle Thieves", "Vidas Secas", "Umberto D", even later, slightly more self-conscious films like "Kes"), most of which sanctified the impoverished, focused on the poverty-stricken and wept over little children and their kind relationships with animals and beasts of burden.
Aesthetically the film is (deceptively) simple, minimalist, but consistently interesting. Kiarostami's camera work and shifting compositions are beautiful, tracking with Ahmed, picking up bits of conversation, pausing to eavesdrop on others and packed with blunt sight gags (eg- Ahmed goes up a narrow alley, a cow comes down the opposite way, blocking him). In terms of flaws, Kiarostami fawns over Ahmed too much, salivating over his blank expressions and exploiting his cute, wide-eyed fragility. It's the Walt Disney school of emotional manipulation. But of course this is largely why the film has quickly become a classic outside of Iran.
8.5/10 – Worth one viewing. For similar fare see the aforementioned films. Also see "Children of Heaven", "Summer at Grandpas", "The White Balloon" and the filmographies of Ozu and Tati. I don't quite trust these stripped down, cutesy, ultra-sentimental tales, but if that's what you're looking for, these represent the cream of the crop.