Abbas Kiarostami's first feature, "The Traveler", may seem at first to be a simplistic film compared to his later, more internationally known works. In the film, Qassem, a ten-year old boy, lives in a small town. He wants desperately to go to Tehran to watch an important soccer match. He ends up lying, cheating and stealing (including a scheme where he charges money to take peoples photos... with no film in the camera) to pay his way to Tehran. He even betrays his best friend. It all seems to pay off when he is able to make it to Tehran. Unfortunately, a few hours before the match he takes a nap in the park. After a horrifying nightmare where all the people he cheated tie his up, hang him upside-down and beat his feet, he wakes up and runs to the soccer stadium. The last shot of the film is an aerial shot of a lone Qassem walking onto an empty soccer field. He missed the game.
While the film does seem to have a finger wagging "this is what happens to bad little boys" feel to it, it manages to transcend its educational film origins (being produced by the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children an Young Adults), and reveals itself to be on par with the celebrated "child-on-a-quest" films that permeate today's Iranian cinema. Despite Qassem's shady behavior, we do feel a certain sympathy for him. We don't support what he does, but Kiarostami does supply us with enough slices of Qassem's troubled home life, that we gain a certain understanding of his desire to get to Tehran. This, to me a least, suggests that Kiarostami was consciously subverting to original intention of the film, which I'm assuming was produced by the CIDCYA in order be shown to children to keep them in line.
As I said before, Kiarostami is not encouraging Qassem's behavior, and the dream sequence suggests that Qassem himself realizes his mistakes. At seventy-five minutes the film is incredibly easy to watch and would be a perfect introduction for young audiences to foreign cinema. Afterwards they could discuss the film's multi-leveled qualities and perhaps realize there is more to movies than "Pokemon".
While the film does seem to have a finger wagging "this is what happens to bad little boys" feel to it, it manages to transcend its educational film origins (being produced by the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children an Young Adults), and reveals itself to be on par with the celebrated "child-on-a-quest" films that permeate today's Iranian cinema. Despite Qassem's shady behavior, we do feel a certain sympathy for him. We don't support what he does, but Kiarostami does supply us with enough slices of Qassem's troubled home life, that we gain a certain understanding of his desire to get to Tehran. This, to me a least, suggests that Kiarostami was consciously subverting to original intention of the film, which I'm assuming was produced by the CIDCYA in order be shown to children to keep them in line.
As I said before, Kiarostami is not encouraging Qassem's behavior, and the dream sequence suggests that Qassem himself realizes his mistakes. At seventy-five minutes the film is incredibly easy to watch and would be a perfect introduction for young audiences to foreign cinema. Afterwards they could discuss the film's multi-leveled qualities and perhaps realize there is more to movies than "Pokemon".