KOB3265 BROADCAST MEDIA APPRECIATION

FILM REVIEW :
WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE

NAMA PELAJAR NO. MATRIKS

Wan Muhammad Aiman Amin bin Wan Mohd Amin 208929

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 CONTENTS

1.0 INTRODUCTION

2.0 SYNOPSIS

3.0 ANALYSIS
3.1 Theme
3.2 Plot

4.0 CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

The Film Poster

Where Is The Friend’s House is an Iranian drama film produced in 1987. The title
of this film originated from a poem by Sohrab Sepehri, an Iranian poet and painter. This
film was also dubbed as a docudrama. Kaiser wrote that docudrama is the “dramatization
of actual events using actors and actresses as opposed to a pure documentary, which uses
real people and events”.

After watching it for the first time, I can feel the substance that was portrayed
and it turned out to be a heart touching story that is being appreciated all over the world.
It won the Bronze Leopard at the 1989 Locarno Film Festival, and the Golden Plate at
the Fajr Film Festival. The film is on the British Film Institute's list of 50 films to see by
age 15.

This film was produced by, Janus Films with the collaboration of The Institute
for the Intellectual Development of Children, Iran. Ali Reza Zarrin was the producer and
directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The main cast were  Babak Ahmadpour, Ahmad
Ahmadpour, Kheda Barech Defai, Iran Outari, Ait Ansari and Biman Mouafi. They are
ordinary people with no Emmy’s behind them.

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2.0 SYNOPSIS

This film is about an 8 year old boy, Ahmad Ahmadpour’s (Babak Ahmadpour),
quest to do the right thing. He watched how his teacher (Khodabakhsh Defai) scolds a
fellow student, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh (Ahmed Ahmadpour), for repeatedly
failing to use his notebook for his homework, threatening expulsion on the next offense.
When he arrives home that day, he was surprised to find out that he mistakenly brought
home Reza’s notebook and he realizes he has made a fatal mistake. Since both their
notebooks look the same, he has put both in his bag and asks his mother to allow him to
visit his friend’s home in the nearby village so that Reza can do his homework and will
not be scolded again. However, his mother believes her son is searching for an excuse not
to do his homework and did not let him go. However, Ahmad finally takes the
opportunity to see his friend when he is sent to buy bread for dinner.

He left his village, Koker to get to Poshteh, where he believes Reza lives. But the
search for the home of his friend’s family proves to be difficult. Most houses look the
same and many people carry the same family name, not to mention the fact several
villagers give the boy false or misleading information about the location of the house. As
Ahmad finds himself in the maze that is the village, with the sun slowly setting, he
realizes he might never find his friend’s house. Then he meets an adult, a sincere carpenter
who makes doors and windows, assists him but unfortunately it was not the Reza he was
looking for. Finally, Ahmad chooses to go home and finishes both his and Reza’s homework.
The next morning although he was a little bit late, Ahmad manages to hand over Reza’s
notebook for the teacher to assess. They were lucky that the teacher was satisfied and Reza
was saved.

3.1 ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE

The theme brought forward in this film are realism, morality and care. Children are
seen to navigate the rules and authority of adults, out of a sense of obedience and fear of
punishment. Yet, Kiarostami also establishes the children of Where is the Friend’s
House? with an overriding sense of morality, as evidence in the figure of eight-year-old

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Ahmad. While the hero’s journey is a simple idea, Kiarostami’s style of realism is shown
especially asking for directions, the answers to which are never straightforward.

As the film opens Ahmad a grade schooler, watches as his teacher scolds a fellow
student, Mohammad Reza Nehmatzadeh for repeatedly failing to use his notebook for his

homework, threatening dismissal if he repeats the mistake.  Ahmad accidently took

Nehmatzadeh’s book home and tried to find a way to give him back.

The shock of this mistake subsequently drives the necessary to save his friend
from the fate of the very strict teacher’s harsh punishment, setting him in motion on an
obstacle-laden journey to return the notebook, zigzagging through landscapes, maze-like
alleyways and a host of unhelpful people along the way.

Ahmad made four journeys altogether. First from Koker to Posteh, looking for
Nehmatzadeh. When he arrived in Poshteh he was informed that Nehmatzadeh went to
Posteh. His second journey was to go back to Posteh. Arriving there he meet with a man
who claims that he from Koker whom Ahmad thought is Nehmatzadeh’s father.

He then followed this man back to Poshteh, his third journey. Arriving in Poshteh,
they found out that there were so many named as Nemadzadeh and this one is not
Nehmatzadeh’s father. A boy tells him “There are lots of Nematzadehs around here”. His
last journey was later that night when he decided to go home after failing to look for
Nehmatzadeh. The journeys and the way they are shot play an important role in the film’s
rhythms: for each Kiarostami uses the same stretches of ground, shot from the same angle
and camera distance; in each, Ahmad remains in longshot, a tiny figure struggling up a
hill or dashing through a small wood.

He finds himself entangled in the adult world, a net defined by various duties,
hierarchies and obligations, which many of the people Ahmad runs into openly abuse to
prove their status. They are almost all either harshly authoritarian (such as the
schoolteacher who made his friend to tears), or preoccupied (Ahmed's immediate family).
Through the lens of childhood purity & innocence, we notice the indifference of adults as
Ahmad attempts to make them see reason to his dilemma and why it is important for him
to right the wrong.
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 The repeated image of him running the path up the hill towards the village, is
perhaps the most fitting, and quite ironic metaphor within the story. Ahmed picks up
certain clues on his quest: he is told that his friend's house has a blue door; he notices a
pair of pants identical to his friend's drying on a clothesline; he listens for the bell of a
donkey ridden by a man he thinks is his friend's father. All of these prove to be
distraction in this small-scale wickedness.

Kiarostami asks viewer to interact with the narrative, to pick up, understand and
learn from it. For example, near the beginning of his search Ahmed comes upon a
classmate named Morteza, Nehmatzadeh’s cousin, who he asked for directions and help.
Earlier in the day, the boy was scolded for being under a desk and not paying attention,
and when the teacher asked why, the boy simply replied that his back hurt.

The character is soon forgotten until Ahmed encounters his classmate again in
Poshteh. Morteza is seen carrying heavy containers laden with milk on his back, and the
puzzle of why his back hurt is immediately apparent. Although Morteza cannot
accompany Ahmed, as the milk must be tended to, he offers help in the form of
unconventional directions to Nehmatzadeh’s neighbourhood: “…in Khanevar, up the hill,
there’s a staircase in front and a blue door right by a bridge.”

Ahmad plays his character to absolute perfection. He gets every emotion, every
nuance, every expression right without saying much, his face a landscape of moral
conflict that explicitly tells all he's feeling in the moment. Besides the performance of
Ahmad, there is also Farhad Sabas’ cinematography, highlighting the growing sense of
desperation and helplessness of the situation. (Rouven Linnarz 2021)

The film takes us on a journey to some haunting moments, mystical scenes,

mesmerizing landscape and beautiful sceneries of Iranian villages. It takes a very simple and
straightforward premise and formulates an endlessly captivating narrative out of it
through scenarios that not only seem credible but also make us all the more devoted in
the kid's journey & final outcome. Kiarostami keeps the drama as lifelike as possible,
neither overstuffing it nor leaving it hollow, and makes sure every single scene is relevant
to the plot.

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 So now it’s the final scene, where the film comes full circle. We are back in the
classroom. The teacher entered, and opened the window. Ahmad was reported absent,
Nehmatzadeh was in despair, head on desk. A boy gets into trouble for helping his father
on his farm while he should have been doing his homework. Ahmad then entered the
classroom. Just in time, he sits down by Nehmatzadeh, hands over a homework book. It’s
the wrong one, but the exchange is swift. The teacher looks at his book and said it is good
then at Nehmatzadeh’s which is also good.

And in Nehmatzadeh’s book is the flower the old window maker put there. This is
where the film ends. According to academics, it was a gift from Kiarostami to the two
boys for their selflessness and their friendship in this hostile world. It is fully
recommended for families with young children to watch as learn from it.

2.0 CONCLUSION

Abbas Kiarostami had been making films, principally about children, since 1970.
This sublime 1987 feature brought him to international attention.
An Iranian film scholar Hamid Naficy attributes Kiarostami’s idiosyncratic style
of realism to a confluence of personal, historical/political and institutional factors.
(Hamid Naficy, 2012)

His films are esoteric, simply that they’re different from Western and other Iranian
films alike, in the way they’re put together (without scripts and in most cases without
professional actors , in the way they address Iranians, and in what Kiarostami includes and
leaves out. (Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1998).

For parents with children I recommend them to watch.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Hamid Naficy, (2012) , “All Certainties Melt into Thin Air: Art-House Cinema, a Postal
Cinema,” in A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 4 (Durham and London: Duke
University Press)

Jonathan RosenbaumApril 30, 1998

https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/where-is-my-friends-house/

Kaiser, Ronald (1980), “Problems of Docudrama-Legal and Otherwise ”, European Broadcast

Union Review, Vol.31, No.4.

Robin Wood ( 2011), The Heroism of Disobedience and Deceit: Where Is the Friend’s House?
Film International ; Thinking Film Since 1973

Rouven Linnarz (2021) Film Review: Where is the Friend’s House (1987) by Abbas Kiarostami
Asian Movie Pulse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Is_the_Friend%27s_House%3F