The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Asian Films list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
In 1990 northern Iran experienced a devastating earthquake. The warm, humane comedy of Abbas Kiarostami’s film precludes condescending rhetoric of noble suffering. His surrogate, an unnamed filmmaker, accompanied by his young son, Puya, tries to drive to Koker; the main road is backed-up with traffic, and another road is impassable because of landslides. Their mission: to locate two young boys who appeared in the director’s Khane-ye Doust Kodjast?, in which one fails to find the house of a school friend in a neighboring village. Will the director have more luck now? Did the Ahmadpour brothers survive? The director comes armed with a poster for the earlier film prominently featuring the starring Ahmadpour boy’s face. En route, father and son learn that the earthquake razed every home in Koker.
Kiarostami is documenting his own attempt to find the boys. A camera strapped to the side of his surrogate’s vehicle records the devastation. In addition, beautiful extreme long shots of the vehicle’s upward trek through mountainous terrain suggest the struggle of mortally aware humanity to push onward, to keep afloat—what Tennyson described as “ever climbing up the climbing wave.”
A woman on the road relates she has lost home and family—eighteen persons. She declines a ride, as though too much mitigation of hardship would break faith with the dead. But elderly Mr. Ruhi, from Khane-ye Doust Kodjast?, gets in. He tells Puya that if the dead could return they would appreciate life more. He was made to look “older and uglier” for the 1987 film. “That’s not art,” he humorously opines. “If you make an old man young and handsome, that’s art.”
Puya is receiving an education of the heart. The film stops mid-journey. Zendegi edame darad: And life goes on . . . .
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LIFE AND NOTHING MORE (Abbas Kiarostami, 1992)
The following is one of the entries from my 100 Greatest Asian Films list, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis
In 1990 northern Iran experienced a devastating earthquake. The warm, humane comedy of Abbas Kiarostami’s film precludes condescending rhetoric of noble suffering. His surrogate, an unnamed filmmaker, accompanied by his young son, Puya, tries to drive to Koker; the main road is backed-up with traffic, and another road is impassable because of landslides. Their mission: to locate two young boys who appeared in the director’s Khane-ye Doust Kodjast?, in which one fails to find the house of a school friend in a neighboring village. Will the director have more luck now? Did the Ahmadpour brothers survive? The director comes armed with a poster for the earlier film prominently featuring the starring Ahmadpour boy’s face. En route, father and son learn that the earthquake razed every home in Koker.
Kiarostami is documenting his own attempt to find the boys. A camera strapped to the side of his surrogate’s vehicle records the devastation. In addition, beautiful extreme long shots of the vehicle’s upward trek through mountainous terrain suggest the struggle of mortally aware humanity to push onward, to keep afloat—what Tennyson described as “ever climbing up the climbing wave.”
A woman on the road relates she has lost home and family—eighteen persons. She declines a ride, as though too much mitigation of hardship would break faith with the dead. But elderly Mr. Ruhi, from Khane-ye Doust Kodjast?, gets in. He tells Puya that if the dead could return they would appreciate life more. He was made to look “older and uglier” for the 1987 film. “That’s not art,” he humorously opines. “If you make an old man young and handsome, that’s art.”
Puya is receiving an education of the heart. The film stops mid-journey.
Zendegi edame darad: And life goes on . . . .
Tags: Abbas Kiarostami, Iranian cinema
This entry was posted on October 25, 2007 at 5:13 am and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.