Popular reviews

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  Review by Karst ★★★★★ 18

  Happy birthday Kiarostami!

  I have a huge soft spot for films that understand the purpose of children in society. Because so often it feels like they are looked at as mirrors of who we once were that we have the ability to mold rather than a part of humanity we could learn from. A few films that immediately come to mind are Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Pialat's L'Enfance nue. While sure, Where Is My Friend's House fits in the same category as those films in a sense that it also features a bunch of shots of a little boy running around in a world full of mystery. But rather than feeling hard to ignore, its as though this boy…

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  Review by Rod Sedgwick ★★★★★ 12

  Grandfather's Friend:''What I mean to say is, suppose the kid did nothing wrong. What would you do? What then?''
  Grandfather:''I'd find an excuse and give him a beating every other week. So he wouldn't forget.''

  Often it's the smallest and simplest observations on life that are the most emotionally resonant and impactful, as is the case with Abbas Kiarostami's 1987 film Where Is the Friend's Home?, where we see immense compassion and loyalty from a child who navigates a world of adults who do not listen to him or consider that he even has feelings as he tries to return his friends schoolbook to help avoid him getting expelled. This is Kiarostami at his most narratively conventional, but he still…

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  Review by Diogo Serafim ★★★★½ 3

  one of the most diligent films ever made, a painstaking coming of age odyssey with an incredibly expansive symbology: everything here is absolutely essential, a boy whose back hurts because he needs to help his father by carrying milk, some brownish red pants, a gust of wind in the backyard, the windows' reflex on the walls... it's all very potent, these signs aren't there for mere narrative development, they address a much bigger spectrum where politics, economics and metaphysics collide. the biggest question here is also the biggest question on liberalism: how am i supposed to do my work when i am preventing my neighbour of doing his? an extremely meticulous work, which ends with the most utterly beautiful signs of them all: a small flower on a notebook.

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  Review by davidehrlich

  the kind of life-affirming masterpiece that would never be made today (because of GPS).

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  Review by Violet ★★★★½ 2

  At times a more stressful and tense film than Uncut Gems

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 3

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  That feeling when you're so desperate to not see your friend get in trouble, that you're willing to do their homework......5 stars

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  Review by cookie ★★★★★ 1

  children should be seen and heard

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★ 3

  Iranian culture normally puts a lot of emphasis on children and the education they must receive in order to "be good contributors to society". The methods used are, of course, inappropriate and destructive, but that's life's vicious cycle: unless a generation breaks the moral patterns established, they will keep on getting transmitted through heritage. This beautiful slice of everyday life makes us go deep into the mind of a child, a child that we once were. The film is so explicit in its emotions that we understand everything going on in his mind, the motives behind his actions and *bam*! Suddenly, we are focusing on adults for segments of around 6 minutes for contrast effects. Adulthood hypocrisy is a strong issue to deal with, but it is very satisfactory to see a talented filmmaker to put Iran on the map, question certain aspects of education and growth and focus on the little, audiovisual and sensory elements of life.

  96/100

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  Review by Lara Pop ★★★★★ 43

  #Kiarostami Rewatch

  where are you
  i brought your notebook
  i went where the road took me
  and it handed me a flower
  to be remembered by.

  Let's talk about that flower, shall we?

  One of my favorite scenes is where the young boy and the old man walk the streets of Poshteh in the darkness. The film's greatest asset is undoubtedly repetition, which manifests in the central conflict between the child and the adult world. The adults don't pay attention to what the little boy says and only repeat their petty, self-righteous lines without listening to what the child has to say. The only adult who truly listens to him is an old blacksmith living in solitude. He is in…

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  Review by Sean Baker 9

  Lucky enough to see the restored Koker Trilogy on the big screen thanks to the Kiarostami retrospective (And Life Goes On: The Films of Abbas Kiarostami) at The Cinematheque in Vancouver.

  (Kiarostami never referred to Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987), And Life Goes On (a.k.a. Life and Nothing More, 1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994) a trilogy - this was dubbed by critics and film scholars)

  Indiewire covered the Janus Films traveling series:
  www.indiewire.com/2019/07/abbas-kiarostami-a-retrospective-trailer-janus-films-restoration-1202160458/

  Watched at The Cinematheque in Vancouver.

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  Review by cinephile... 🕯️

  uncut gems for kids

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  Review by Muriel ★★★★★

  a little miracle of a movie i'd like to keep in my pocket to remind myself how important kindness is. simultaneously warmed and broke my heart.