Bashu, the Little Stranger (1989) User Reviews

Very moving film

[lisa floo · 9/10 · 13 October 2001]

Bashu is a moving film about a young Iranian boy who's family is killed during a bombing raid. Bashu escapes by stowing away in the back of a truck and ends up in a completely different part of Iran. He is adopted by Naii, a mother of two young children who's husband is away looking for work.

Bashu is nervous at first, especially as the townpeople are so hostile towards him, but Naii makes him welcome in a very touching and loving way. Naii is a very special person, combining gentleness and love with great strength. She has complete faith in Bashu and is rewarded in return with his smiles and happiness.

I loved the scene with the other young boys of the village in the crop to help the plants grow quicker. The drumming was a recurring subject, and is particularly powerful when Bashu is drumming when Naii is sick.

I thought the calling to the hawks showed a connection between Naii and Bashu but also added an earthiness and naturalness to both their characters.

This is a very moving film and I recommend to anyone.

Very good movie

[Pro Jury · 9/10 · 20 January 2004]

I am in complete agreement with the other positive comments posted for this movie. The director certainly knows how to frame a striking visual image.

One additional comment needs to be shared. The version of this movie currently on video (Year 2004) is very sparsely subtitled. The second hour has much more dialog than the first, but after the first hour, the subtitles grow fewer and farther between.

Also, the subtitling does not indicate what languages or dialects are being spoken at any given time. Each line of dialog is (sometimes) translated into English for the viewer, but it is often not clear that the tongue being spoken is foreign to the other characters hearing it in the scene.

Great Humanity Pacing the Movie, Almost Unbearable

[p_radulescu · 10/10 · 23 May 2010]

The Iranian movies continue to astonish me. Beside Kiarostami, the number of Iranian directors making great movies is overwhelming. It is one of the most important movie schools, and the most amazing is that each of their movies is so firmly implanted in the Iranian universe while speaking out universal values.

It was by chance that I watched Bashu today. I had found it on youTube, I had noted the address, to access it later. I decided this morning to see it, just to discover that my notice with the youTube address was lost! I gave a search on the web for Iranian movie with a boy who lost his family and I found it again! A ten years boy looses all his family when the village is bombed during the Iran-Iraq war. He escapes jumping on a cargo truck where he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he is in an unknown place where the landscape is totally different from what the boy knows. Unknown people speak an unknown language and look very different from him. Impossible to understand anyone, impossible to be understood.

No wonder: the boy is from a province in the Southern part of Iran, near the Persian Gulf, and speaks Arabic, while the region where he has arrived is in the North, near the Caspian Sea, where people speak a very remote dialect of Farsi.

But this we'll know much later, probably after the end of the movie, when we start to look for comments and reviews. During the movie we are absorbed in a universe of fantastic that calls in mind the stories of Eliade.

What follows is a great story of love: maternal love and filial love. A woman with two kids of her own, initially reticent, will learn to love the boy like a mother, while the boy, initially just scared, will learn to love his new mother. And this unfolds despite the absolute barrier of language. Development of love, marked by moments when each of the two, the woman and the boy, just realize, with pain and joy, the intensity of the developing sentiment.

Apparently a simple story, actually told with great cinematic finesse. A story rendered with a perfect economy of means: there is a lot that happens there on the screen, while nothing is superfluous, while each scene comes exactly when need is, no earlier, no later. And all the time you feel that the director is in perfect control.

And above all, the great humanity that paces the movie, almost unbearable!

Baashu language precisions

[retobraun2000 · 10/10 · 23 July 2005]

This is one of the nicest movie I've ever seen. I just would like to comment on the language. This is an Iranian movie, but the language is not Persian as the small boy (Baashu) speaks Arabic and the region where the film has been shot is Gilaan or Mazanderaan, therefore the language is Gilaki or Mazanderi. It is not really understandable to Persian speakers. So you might need subtitles to understand it. I loved this touching movie. It is the story of a Baashu, a small nomad boy who escapes combats in the south of Iran (during Iran-Iraq war). He jumps in a truck and finds himself in an unknown place where he understands nobody's language. A farmer woman takes him under her protection. The film is about differences or I should say humanity and common feelings among all humans, like love and compassion. I will not tell you more, but advise you to watch this exceptional film. I wish you a nice moment watching this wonderful movie.

The best movie I have ever seen.

[sbekam · 10/10 · 17 February 2001]

Bashu deals with a very complex issue which is the vast cultural differences in Iran. It is masterfully done by one of the best directors of Iran, Bahram Beizai. Bashu is the name of a young boy from South-Western part of Iran who happens to end up in Northern part of Iran and experiences the cultural shock. In comparing these two parts of Iran, Beizai masterfully brings out the differences between the people, the climate, the costume, the language, and the past influence of Super-powers (Russia in the North and Britain in the South) meanwhile tying the story together to make a delightful movie.

I saw this movie when it was first released, and have watched it over and over again and recommend it to all.

When a displaced and scared boy has to survive, what does he have to rely on?

[jakagmom · 10/10 · 28 October 2005]

"Bashu" is special, important, soulful, educational, touching and not to be missed by anyone who even mildly likes film.

Aside from the cinematography acting as a medium and taking the viewer into the world of rural Iran, director Bahram Beizai uses supernatural touches to move the audience. Sussan Taslimi is tough and beautiful; the children in the film are delicious; the elders of the village are real, hateful, human.

Very little dialogue moves the story along, another feature that makes this film watchable. The piece is shot with trust and slowness that you can bathe in the surroundings without having to feel that you are on a mystery hunt. There is mystery of course and not all of it is explained. It certainly is not a Hollywood movie. It is not even a European movie. it is simply, A MUST SEE MOVIE.

Great film from before "the Iranian new wave" of the '90s

[frankde-jong · 7/10 · 4 June 2020]

"Bashu" was made by veteran director Bahram Beizai just before the "Iranian new wave" with directors such as Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf took the Western art cinema's by surprise. In reality there was no need for surprise, because (some of) Iranain cinema had a high quality standard since "The cow" (1969, Dariush Mehrjui).

"Bashu" certainly is one of these high quality films and it gives a multidimensional and sometimes surprising perspective on the Iranian society.

Multidimensional because of the variety of regions and landscapes. The film starts in the South of Iran from where a little boy (Bashu played by Adnan Afravian) flees for the war between Iran and Iraq. He ultimately arrives in Iranian Kurdistan (the Northwest of Iran) where he is adopted in a family run by the single mother Nail (played by Susan Taslimi). In contrast to the desert like South, Iranian Kurdistan is very green and very fertile. Also the languages c.q. dialects spoken in the South and in the Northwest are very different. Only halfway the movie Nail and Bashu discover that they can communicatie through Farsi (the national language).

Surprising because of the role of Nail. She is a very strong and independent woman, who not only runs her family alone (only towards the end of the movie her husband returns home) but who also does not give in to social pressure from the village community. All in all, not a character we expect in an Iranian movie. Maybe this type of character was after all not appreciated in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Actress Susan Taslimi emigrated to Sweden in 1987, that is between the making (1986) and the release (1989) of "Bashu".

The little refugee!

[hotadres · 9/10 · 2 December 2000]

Most striking in this Middle-Eastern film are the subtle reflection of the beautiful nature against a background of a senseless war and intolerant human beings. You can see the film just for enjoyment and you can keep thinking about every scene for a long time.

The story begins with Bashu, the child who wakes up seeing his mother burning up in flames, his father disappearing under wreckage of their house and his sister vanishing in the midst of Iraqi bombardment during Iraq-Iran war. The perplexed child gets deaf and run into the back of a truck, which carries him to another part of the country. The same country, yet entirely a different world: another language, another skin color, different clothes, more green fields, less sand, different Iranians...etc.

So much difference in a country supposed to be made of one nation. An illusion most authorities in the region try make their people believe in instead of encouraging tolerance among their subjects. However, Bashu would be lucky enough to find the mother Naii who is a strong woman, independent, courageous and stubborn. She is caring for her two children, chickens and other animals and gives Bashu enough tenderness that makes him smile again despite the new environment, the new language, the rejection of other villagers and flash backs of his tragic family loss. It is no wonder that Bashu sees the ghost of his real mother most of the time next to Naii.

A less convincing scene was the return of Naii's husband. It might be due to censorship that it would be said in the film that Naii's husband was looking for work. It is more digestible for the audience to be told that the man has lost this arm in the war than saying that he lost it while looking for work!

Bahram Beizai shows us how independent and smart a woman can be, yet feminine and loveable.

The best Iranian Film

[asm34 · 9 January 2003]

Bashu is an amazing movie by any standard. I have watched Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, Panahi, Majidi, but Beyzai supersedes them all inthis great film.

The story is nothing new and nor is it complex. But the way the director showed the complex undertones of complete stranger Bashus psychology was astounding.

My hats off to Beyzai: "YOU ARE THE MASTER"

Simple, human, touching

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 9 February 2012]

A simple, human, quite touching Iranian film, about a 10 year old boy whose family is killed when the Persian Gulf is bombed by Iraq. Fleeing the war, he stows away on a truck and ends up in the verdant, peaceful north, where he struggles to fit in and start a new life. His adopted new small town is suspicious of outsiders, especially those with darker skin, and the boy speaks Arabic, whereas the locals speak a regional language. But he slowly finds his way, and finds love in a gentle, big hearted film about family, re-birth and hope.

It's amazing how many good films have come out of Iran over the last generation. It's really become one of the last bastions of thoughtful, humanistic drama.

great Persian movie

[milad621 · 10/10 · 6 May 2011]

I had a lot nostalgia with this movie despite it was my first time watching this movie. During the war between Iran and Iraq a boy who's from south-east where is affected from war more than anywhere. By hiding in a truck accidentally goes to north of Iran. The safest place during the war. It seems people are not aware of the war. It was funny for me that these people never seen a person with dark side and they were laughing at Bashu. Susan Taslimi was great. In my opinion she is the best Persian actress. I'm so sad she left Iran that soon and she didn't act in more movies. All her movies worth watching at least for seeing her act. This movie was boycotted for about 4 years. They said this movie is antiwar and is not a propel movie during the war. But it has shown after the war on 1990.

no words

[ZiaiZ · 8/10 · 31 January 2019]

Without the "no words" this film does not speak. and When the cinema speaks instead of characters

great story

[vivin_mars · 9/10 · 5 May 2020]

I got really fascinated by Susan Taslimi's acting.Mostly I enjoyed the great story .

As old as me

[ThisisJimik · 9/10 · 10 July 2021]

This movie was made in 1987 , exactly when i was born in the same country . The interesting thing is i also was in the far away from war part of country (Mashhad ) and i also didnt feel nothing about war . But boys and gurls like Bashu , really felt and got confronted by the ruining of Damn War.

Unlikely Gem

[pauladams-30520 · 7 January 2019]

This movie is about as far from Hollywood as you can get, and about as close to real life, even though what little dialog there is is in obscure languages, and it's set in an unfamiliar, timeless and almost pre-historic world. There's lots of intimate tension and even drama, but nothing overblown or forced. The ending is wonderful. A gentle masterpiece.