Mossafer (1974)

Director:

Abbas Kiarostami

Writer:

Abbas Kiarostami (writer)

Release Date:

22 January 1992 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A grade-school-age boy, neglected by his parents, lies, cheats, and steals to accumulate enough money to afford a bus ride to a large city and a ticket to see his favorite soccer team play. |

Plot Keywords:

Soccer

Cast

Hassan Darabi	...	Qassem
Masud Zandbegleh

Also Known As:

The Traveler (USA)
The Traveller

Runtime:

USA:83 min

Country:

Iran

Language:

Persian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Movie Connections:

Followed by Safari be Diare Mosafer (1993)

Wonderful early film by Kiarostami

Kiarostami's first feature (made some 15 years before he became the darling of the film festival circuit) tells the story of a troublesome, amoral 10 year old boy (Hassan Darabi), living in a small town in Iran, who wishes to go to Tehran to see Iran's national football team play an important match. To achieve that, he steals money from friends and neighbors through a series of scams. After a number of adventures, he finally reaches Tehran stadium at the time of the match, but there, and without giving totally away the ending, he ends up getting some sort of comeuppance (as usual by Kiarostami, there is a great final shot). One of the remarkable things of the movie is how driven is the boy in reaching his objective, never thinking how what he is doing will affect other people, even those that are closer to him. Also fascinating is the film look at Iranian football culture during the 70s (which wasn't very different to football culture in other countries at the time). Kiarostami has a very fine hand in telling a story sensitively, and he avoids the pretentiousness he showed in later films, after he has been acclaimed by European critics.