Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1970 • Iran
Starring Reza Hashemi, Mehdi Shahravanfar
“The mother of all my films,” according to Abbas Kiarostami, starts out as a breezily observed anecdote about a boy wending his way home through Tehran alleys carrying a loaf of bread. Variations on both the boy and the old man he sees and begins to follow will factor into future Kiarostami films, as will the use of “dead time,” the journey structure, and the poetic articulation of space. The final scene, involving a dog and a door, ends things on a note of wry ambiguity.
Up Next in Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films
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Breaktime
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1972 • Iran
Starring Sirous HassanpourDisciplined at school for breaking a window, a boy joins throngs of his schoolmates as they make a cacophonous exit into Tehran’s streets. He then briefly joins an impromptu soccer game but disrupts it by stealing the ball and...
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Experience
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1973 • Iran
Starring Parviz Naderi, Hossein Yarmohammadi, Andre GovalovishBased 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 ...
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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...
