On a pilgrimage to Mashad from Tehran, a couple's transportation breaks down, far from any major town. The husband, a photographer, seeks help at a nearby village and encounters a teacher who offers to help. Whilst the husband and teacher go off to find a spare part, the wife, who used to be a teacher, takes over the teaching lessons in the village. It is clear that the children live there, in this strange deserted place, without any men, save the teacher and an old signal guard. As the day draws on, the children help to bring a new hope and life into the wife's heart.
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Reviews
This film is a dog. It looks like it was filmed in an afternoon.There is nothing to it no care was given to anything...it is supposed to be a deserted spot yet careless camera angles later in the film show it is near populated areas.A photographer and his wife get off the main road and their car breaks down. The only one who can repair it is a local school teacher...the wife is also school teacher too so she takes over his class while he repairs the car.Her day at the school so impressed the kids that they keep following her at the end of the film as she and her husband (car repaired) try to drive off.Oh yes the woman has not had any children...while she is teaching that afternoon a ewe has a still born lamb under the school (we are talking basics...mud buildings no windows or doors..). But wait!....she has children in the form of the students who adore her and won't let her leave after 5 hours.Dull boring stupid .... the perfect film to wow idiots.
Awful...extremely weak acting, discontinuous, boring story...i can't believe Kiarostami initiated the idea! The worst scenario ever...I think it is not actor's fault why dialogs are so rigid and senseless... do not waste your money by renting it...there are lots and lots of great Iranian movies you can watch...i am really sorry this one could pass several better ones and get into the international market...:-( The director takes advantage of Kiarostami's name and Leila Hatami's presence in the movie...and honestly, Leila Hatami does not even act so well...the idea of the movie could have been developed in a much better and more mature fashion...maybe if Kiarostami himself had decided to work on it, it would turn out a prize-winning movie. but this one is not really worth a dime...:-(
The story has to work on its surface first, and this barely does. The editing back and forth between the husband and the wife is not well timed and not tied together. The characters look like they should be very interesting, but somehow they aren't so much. The connections between people that show up aren't particulary gripping or engaging, and the scene at the end simply doesn't work, physically or emotionally. Also, this being filmed in the desert with rather light-colored scenery, it can be extremely hard to read the white subtitles at times.Good points are stunning desert scenery (although it looks a lot less remote and deserted than plenty of places right here in Oregon), decent acting, and good metaphors about Iranian life.
The film is about a couple who get stuck in the middle of the desert and get help from the village's teacher who is also the local mechanic. While the mechanic & the husband go to get a mechanical piece to repair the car, the wife, a teacher herself, remains in the village to replace the teacher. As usual with Iranian films these days the film is very symbolic and as usual the small scale story is used to say something about the Iranian society. There is nothing bad about films which use metaphors, but the story has to strong enough for us to understand the metaphors without the help of the director. In this film the story is too weak to hold on itself and the metaphors are represented in such a way that make the film less appealing than it should have been.