Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1973 • Iran
Starring Parviz Naderi, Hossein Yarmohammadi, Andre Govalovish
Based on a story by Amir Naderi, who also cowrote the film, this slice of a fourteen-year-old boy’s life follows his efforts to fend for himself in the big city, working as a tea server and assistant in a photographer’s studio, running errands, and, briefly, exchanging glances with a pretty middle-class girl. With no music and little dialogue, and distinguished by its darkly elegant compositions, the film offers an impressionistic meditation on adolescent solitude.
Up Next in Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films
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So Can I
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1975 • Iran
The first of Abbas Kiarostami’s films made for, rather than about, children was an experiment in combining live action and animation, done in collaboration with animator Nafiseh Riahi. As two schoolboys watch animated views of animals’ actions—kangaroos...
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Two Solutions for One Problem
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1975 • Iran
This simple moral tale seems to prefigure WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? Two young schoolboys, Dara and Nader, are friends until Dara returns Nader’s notebook torn and Nader retaliates in kind, setting off an escalating battle that leads to destruction of...
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A Wedding Suit
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1976 • Iran
Starring Mohammad Fassih, Mehdi Nekoueï, Massoud ZandIn a trilevel shopping arcade, a teenage boy who works for a tailor is besieged by two other boys who want to borrow a new suit to wear on a social outing before it’s turned over to its owner. One of...
