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A movie and book review blog

  • Reading films, watching books,....
  • Mind candy in the dark
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Jul 27, 2006

Coming from a 20 year old director is a good movie, if you can forget that her father is the famous Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Samira Makhmalbaf tells the story of a couple of teachers who carry blackboards on their backs and virtually 'hunt down' students (because no one want to learn to read or write)in the craggy and treacherous Kurdish mountainsides in the Iran-Iraq border.

This seemed more like a documentary with shreds of a story than a feature film. It is worth a watch if you are student of cultures and if you like to know how people in other parts of the world live. It gets boring sometimes because the material is stretched too far and it wears thin. I'd view it for educational purposes rather than for entertainment.

Jul 18, 2006

My second Ghobadi film, the first one was Marooned in Iraq. I loved this one a lot better than the first maybe because it is easier to sympathize with the plight of young children.

The story takes place in Iraqi Kurdistan, the three main characters in the story are all orphans, finding their way in the world of refugee camps and land mines. The main character, Satellite, is a young teenager with a penchant for technical stuff that he's the one who is responsible for installing satellite dishes, delivering and translating international news as well as being the self-made contractor for a band of orphan children who clears landmines. The other two main characters are a refugee girl whom Satellite develops a crush on and her invalid elder brother who can see the future.

In a constantly volatile war zone without the umbrella of security that could have been provided by their parents, had they been alive, these children live life one day a time. The only aim they have infront of them is surviving one more day - whether they are four or fourteen years old. A brutally honest film yet simplistic and heartrending. Hats off to Bahman Ghobadi.

p.s- Iraqi movie but tagged under Iranian films,
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