Bicycleran

Name: Bicycleran
Genre: Drama
Released: 1998-09-09
Duration: 1 h 22 min
Rating: 7.2
Cast: Mahshid Afsharzadeh, Firouz Kiani, Samira Makhmalbaf

19891989
1h 22m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

2.2K

YOUR RATING

Mohammad Reza Maleki and Moharram Zaynalzadeh in Bicycleran (1989)

Drama

The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit ... Read allThe wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The prom... Read allThe wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The promoter brings in sick and aged spectators, haranguing them to find hope in Nasim's strength.... Read all

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

2.2K

YOUR RATING

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Awards
- 4 wins

Trivia
This is the film that Hossain Sabzian mentioned in "Close-Up 1990" while talking to Abbas Kiarostami "tell him (Makhmalbaf) the cyclist is a part of me".

Connections
Featured in Stardust Stricken - Mohsen Makhmalbaf: A Portrait (1996)

User reviews9

Review

Featured review

8/10

desperate acts

A middle-aged Afghani man is alarmed when his wife falls very ill in Teheran. He has no money to pay the bill. He must look after his young son. To raise money to pay for his wife's care he undertakes an endurance contest. He attempts to ride a bicycle for 5 days without stopping.

He circles the same city square, surrounded by onlookers. This is a spectacle. He is a showman in a circus environment. The cyclist becomes the talk of the town. Will he make it? Bets are placed. Various gamblers try to sabotage his attempts, so they will win their bets. Various persons in the crowd cheer the cyclist on, making him their temporary hero.

Director Makhmalbaf has made a splendid film about an ordinary man, driven to desperate acts. Various scenes in the movie are elegantly shot. Performances are credible. This is one film where I really cared about what happened to the characters.

veloc

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