Where is the Friend's Home?
Abbas Kiarostami, 1987, approx. 90 minutes
Iranian with English Subtitles
The largest irony in Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’
is actually linked
to the most discernable yet least explicit trait explored in the film,
namely, the natural
push to do good deeds for others. Ahmed is a child and as a child he
is by nature pure,
innocent and willing to expend himself to help a friend lagging behind
in his studies.
Ahmed is chastised and hassled by his grandfather who feels that the
boy cannot be
brought up right unless he is able to grasp a command when it is first
given. The
grandfather recounts his youth of small gifts and frequent beatings,
directly linking it to a
lifelong need to hear directions more than once, which he intimates
has cost him half of
his salary years ago. In a sense, his ideas about bringing Ahmed up
correctly are justified
and even in the boy’s best interest. The irony here is that the grandfather
is oblivious to
Ahmed’s plight even as he lectures the boy at length. He talks of “use
in society”. Little
does he know Ahmed is being useful as we speak. The grandfather may
know the
immensity of the world, but he is not aware of the immensity of Ahmed’s
heart. This is
one contribution to the journey that helps to define it.
The journey’s simplicity is marked by the underlying symbol everyday
objects
will take on. The notebook Ahmed desperately seeks to return to Nematzadeh
is meant to
stand for the desire Ahmed has to help this boy. The journey itself
fills in the willingness.
Ahmed doing the homework for Nematzadeh completes the act, articulating
the journey
even more. At first it may have stood for the willingness to help the
boy but its length and
occurences (specifically his meeting with the elderly door-maker) have
shown Ahmed
exactly how he was meant to help Nematzadeh. His initiative is reflected
in the ever
reoccuring theme of doors. Doors seem to be hand-crafted in Kolek and
Poshteh and
Ahmed’s grandfather is heard securing the sale of a good one to keep
Ahmed from
catching cold in the brutally windy evenings. A door separates one
from the outside
world just as a window would except that a door is not transparent.
It not only keeps one
apart from the outside world, but it also keeps one from experiencing
or even seeing what
goes on in this world. Ahmed has no interest in staying behind a door.
To further show
just how enterprising Ahmed is in this world is comprised of visually
similar pathways
which lead to doors that all look alike. Kiarostami frames Ahmed’s
entire journey in the
exterior. He is never seen inside any of the dwellings he investigates
while looking for
Nematzadeh.
Kiarostami is not content laying symbols only to elaborate on
things going on
within the film. Throughout ‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’, there are
larger themes
explored. For instance, at one point it is suggested that an iron door
will last a lifetime.
Kiarostami suggests the immeasurability of a lifetime through his characters,
but it also
ties in to the idea of being useful to society and the general simplicity
of Ahmed’s
journey. Who is to say what a productive lifetime really is? Is a lifetime
measured only
by the standards set by the grandfather, a former engineer who radiates
hints of regret? Is
a lifetime measured by the lonesome door-maker, who talks about things
in simple,
almost achingly metaphorical terms? A lifetime to Ahmed, a young man,
is certainly not
the same thing (from his point-of-view) as a lifetime to the grandfather
and the
door-maker, who each seem to be almost as dormant as the doors they
discuss. Ahmed,
who needs no doors, is lively and full of positive energy.
Kiarostami also develops the nature of Ahmed’s journey. Before
the justification
of Ahmed’s good deed is presented, Kiarostami questions the journey
in a quiet, inactive
sequence at Ahmed’s house where the mother doesn’t seem the least bit
angry about
Ahmed’s disappearance in the afternoon The father is playing with a
radio, vacantly and
the grandfather seems to be staring into space, inert as ever. Nothing
really happens in
this scene, which is clearly motivated by a need for reflection. This
is where things need
to be understood in order for the final payoff to work as well as it
does.
Several things appeared before my mind as I recollected Ahmed’s
journey.
Watching Ahmed seated in a room apart from everyone (though intentionally
not behind
a closed door), I realized the immediacy his being alone afforded the
lesson of the
journey, which he derives from the elderly door-maker. The lesson isn’t
simple, but the
nuance that it can only come from total immersion and complete dedication
to one’s duty
is present.
The lesson is further expanded by a second observation that Ahmed
is searching
without knowledge of where the boy lives. This serves two purposes.
Namely, Poshteh
turns out to be much larger and more difficult to navigate than he
had originally thought.
This stands to show just how big the world is to anyone attempting
to make sense of it,
no matter how convinced they are that it is within their grasp. Ahmed’s
miscalculation
also stands to show that when you are without the proper information
(in this case, the
location of a friend’s home), you will inevitably need the help of
others to attain this
information. This is a nice parallel to Nematzadeh’s plight at school
where he repeatedly
lacks possession of the information the teacher requires and needs
a helping hand. The
satisfying level exists a notch above Amhed’s journey in which he asks
for help. That he
never completes his mission supplies the idea that Nematzadeh doesn’t
ask for help and
is doomed to failure. The ephipany Ahmed has (in which he decides to
do Nematzadeh’s
homework for him) shows how magical it is for an audience to be invited
to watch
Ahmed supply the help out of his own kind heart.
Finally, because Ahmed has misappropriated his intentions is
unable to put the
notebook in Nematzadeh’s hands, the world seems to be more cruel. He
looks outside as
the door to his home flaps in the violent wind, banging back and forth
as if reminding
him of the failure he incurred that afternoon. Little does he know
(and what a joy it is
when he puts it together the next day) that a solution comes out of
his strife. Late for
class, he peers around the door to ask the teacher if he may attend
class. We get the sense
that he’s never been on the “asking” side of the door in the classroom.
This is clearly
meant to show that he has come up with something that he never had
thought of before.
Just as Kiarostami seems to view the naturalness of everyday life without
constriction, as
if improvised; so Ahmed improvises a solution that has the same end
- perhaps, the film
suggests, a better end - than if he were to have handed the notebook
to Nematzadeh the
previous day. There is a level of suspense as the teacher has warned
that he doesn’t look
lightly upon anyone misunderstanding his directions more three times.
(This is a direct
parallel to the grandfather’s argument that youth should always be
learning to hear
instruction less times as to grow up with the ability to catch such
instruction when it is
first given.) As he grades Nematzadeh’s notebook and is fooled by Ahmed’s
work, he
says “Good boy” and the film cuts to black. This is the first time
praise is heard in the
duration of the film. The journey ends with praise and the goal met
- however roundabout
the method.
The film’s conceptual theme is very similar to the David Lynch’s
equally
extraordinary ‘The Straight Story’,
a film in which the main character, Alvin Straight,
makes a 260 mile journey from Iowa to Wisconsin via his 1966 John Deere
lawnmower
to see his estranged brother Lyle, who has suffered a stroke. In this
film, it is all the more
meaningful to Lyle that Alvin has come so far in such a dangerous,
slow,
by-any-means-necessary manner. Come hell or high water, he will get
there. Another
theme explored is that of how the lawnmower - just like the fallen
relationship between
the Alvin and Lyle - is a belated mode of transportation that provides
time for reflection
and healing in Alvin’s heart. Kiarostami also provides a time for reflection
and healing.
As Ahmed’s pride is wounded because he could not carry out the deed,
he improvises a
solution to his problem. When both Alvin and Ahmed eventually meet
their goals, the
scene set is that much more powerful because of the length and specific
hardships faced
on the journey. The big difference between Kiarostami’s and Lynch’s
films are that
‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’ gives the audience time to reflect before
the goal is met;
‘The Straight Story’ meanders between it’s ending and it’s credits,
revealing a skyscape
of stars meant to suggest the significance of Alvin’s plight in the
grand scheme of the
entire universe (as good deeds are often measured against). Both films
explore the
majesty of innate goodness as it is measured against the unfathomable,
infinite world as
seen through the eyes of mere human beings.
Life and Nothing More
Abbas Kiarostami, 1992, approx. 90 minutes
Iranian with English Subtitles
I think the glaring opposition of styles – yet equally serene aura –
of Kiarostami’s ‘Life
and Nothing More’ and his ‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’ is a testament
to how
naturalistic a filmmaker he is. In ‘Life and Nothing More’, like clouds,
everything
appears to be drifting in front of us and, also like clouds, none of
it seems to have more
to it than its shape.
There are two protagonists, an actor meant to portray Kiarostami
himself (he is
listed as only “film director”) and his young son Puya, meant to be
reminiscent of
Ahmed, the boy from ‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’ They seem to be on
an impromptu
journey to find the boy who played young Ahmed. The way Puya
mirrors Ahmed is
uncanny – and stirring (as the film director and Puya are still unsure
whether or not the
actor who played Ahmed is even alive). Puya pokes around the same curious
way Ahmed
did. He appears to have the same natural drives for goodness as Ahmed
and he seems,
like Ahmed, to have a natural sense of self-preservation. Actually,
to be clear, as they
stumble through traffic jams, blocked roads, misdirection (and a whimsical
stalling car
that closes the film with an image as literal as the film), the “journey”
transcends into a
“mission”. The sly way Kiarostami amends this notion of duty, after
Puya and the film
director witness as much as they do that day, is amazing. He ends the
film in limbo. The
film director hasn’t quite met his objective yet and Puya is cheerfully
resting from the
“journey/mission”, watching soccer on television. Referred to as a
neorealist ending in
class, I think the ending is more along the lines of the title and
the final image – it’s
literal. The whole thing, unlike the films of bleak neorealism, doesn’t
beg an ending. In
fact, to give us a definitive moment where Puya and the film director
find Ahmed would
be to defy the stylistic drive of Kiarostami himself. It is soft and
wavering – this film
called ‘Life and Nothing More’. It spends it’s entire running time
(of ninety-five minutes)
being it’s title. It doesn’t have any call to define our expectations
or even live up to them.
What would an image of the film director speaking to Ahmed (whom, by
the film’s
conclusion, he knows to be alive) have accomplished? Better to leave
a film like this
meandering into our consciousness, left to chatter away within our
mind long after the
screen goes dark.
There is a string of observatory arguments within the film as
well. I think with the
directly reflexive push for good-natured deeds in ‘Life and Nothing
More’ strongly
echoing the same push in ‘Where is the Friend’s House?’ makes a case
for tragedy itself
being a call for duty. My guess is that in Iran, this is a common level
of thinking. (In
America, this mindset is so foreign it makes a film like this even
more powerful, quite
unintentionally. Whereas when good deeds are shown occurring on American
soil – case
in point, 2000’s ‘Pay it Forward’ –
they come off assuming, shallow and insincere). The
idea that a country will band together to help the survivors of an
earthquake that killed
30-50,000 people is one of staggering beauty and almost awe-inspiring
effectiveness.
‘Life and Nothing More’ never purports to move us, but it does. In
the way it seems to
quietly observe, it moves us even moreso than if it were to generally
bend the music into
something heart-rending and pull some sort of virtuoso tear-jerker
moment out of its hat
in the final moments. It never reaches this maniupulative pitch because
Kiarostami
argues for the filmmaker (and, in a sense, the film) as a witness.
Both literally (the
character of the film director) and figuratively (Kiarostami himself),
the film’s viewpoint
seems to be that of an artist, watching life transpire and taking it
in as if intending to
relay what he has seen to those who may benefit – or be educated –
by such knowledge.
Kiarostami the artist, however, appears in the characters he has written,
to be feeling the
same trauma and sadness as his countrymen. What an inspired moment
when the film
director stumbles into a fallen ruin of a house to look at a piece
of artwork. The painting
he gazes at is stricken by a crack running right down it’s center.
Kiarostami’s film, as art,
is stricken with nature’s consumption of his country’s equilibrium.
‘Life and Nothing
More’ isn’t necessarily a sad film, but there is a somber edge to it,
something that isn’t
meant to be articulated. If I had to express it – it would be the way
the film mirrors
Kiarostami’s mental state after the earthquake. As much as the title
and the ending (and
it’s final image) are literal, so is the film itself. This is a “movie
as a director’s feelings”
at its most forthright: fragmented and slowly unfolding, just like
thought and memory.
I also think the film could work as a series of images, almost
a montage that is
independent of the film director or Puya’s inclusion (especially the
inclusion of their
dialogue – this could’ve been a great silent film). Such images: The
newlyweds as life
going on, a beautifully illustrated moment of organization amidst chaos;
Puya climbing
the ruins which may or may not conceal the dead, an image of life perservering
over
uncertainty (Incidentally, death, in ‘Life and Nothing More’ seems
to be a thing that
lingers - as we never really see the dead: this is a time of mourning,
not internment.); the
reoccurring pathways, those which show the main characters and, indeed,
all of Iran, the
way to a sound recovery and a manageable hereafter. Then there is the
tracking shot of
damaged and befallen homes that eases into a symmetrical, almost natural
spot where the
trees seem to envelope the film director, who stumbles upon some young
children. This
is a moment that stuck with me, a moment where the film director sees
firsthand, life in
nature. The reflection I was able to concentrate on was just how simply
the cycle of life
plots it’s points, the unending beauty of balance and ease – the trees
and the children,
unhurt and naïve, staring bright-eyed as if nothing had happened.
‘Life and Nothing More’, a skilled and wondrous film, takes its
cue from ‘Where
is the Friend’s Home?’ and, in a diametrically opposite style, succeeds
in the same
implicit need to see the grand scheme of life through an apparent minimalism.
As much
as is possible, Kiarostami pulls off stream-of-consciousness filmmaking.
In the film’s
world, he allows a direct plug from his mind to the screen, filtered
only by the audience.
In ninety-five minutes, he shows us life – and nothing more.
Through the Olive Trees
Abbas Kiarostami, 1994, approx. 103 minutes
Iranian with English Subtitles
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