Buzzing comedies such as The Spy Who Dumped Me await you in our Summer Movie Guide. Check in for all the info you need.
Related lists from IMDb users
Title: Blackboards (2000)
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
| Cast overview: | |||
 |
Said Mohamadi | ... | Said |
| Behnaz Jafari | ... | Halaleh | |
| Bahman Ghobadi | ... | Reeboir | |
|
|
Mohamad Karim Rahmati | ... | Father |
|
|
Rafat Moradi | ... | Ribvar |
|
|
Mayas Rostami | ... | Young boy storyteller |
|
|
Saman Akbari | ... | Group leader |
|
|
Ahmad Bahrami | ... | Marriage registrar |
|
|
Mohamad Moradi | ... | Match maker |
|
|
Karim Moradi | ... | Old man |
|
|
Hassan Mohamadi | ... | Child |
|
|
Rasool Mohamadi | ... | The boy porter |
|
|
Somaye Veisee | ... | Little girl |
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
Explore popular action and adventure titles available to stream with Prime Video.
BLACKBOARDS is a human story - an arduous one at that. It affirms the tenacity of human spirits. Its hard medicine content could be uneasy for some to bear. At its core, there is warmth a-glowing beneath it all. Writer-director Samira Makhmalbaf is a true artist - she included subtle visual poetic accents. Shooting along the rugged terrain of Kurdistan, nearing the border between Iran and Iraq, it's barren of vegetation, full of treacherous rocks as people traverse the steep mountain paths and windy troughs. I really appreciate a particular detail scene: from the held wide-shot of a group of teachers with blackboards strapped to their backs, standing abreast at a mountain road clearing - paused, camera quietly cuts to a close-up of a pair of feet with 'billowing' fabric of the trousers. We need no sound effect of whistling wind, the shot was at once poetic and effective. How succinct and direct in expressing the moment, Samira did.
For a 20-year old woman Iranian director in her second feature film, Samira Makhmalbaf is awesome - sensitive, perceptive, mature in her viewpoint, with bold persistence against all odds to complete her project. Keen awareness of the state of affairs her film is focused on - not so much as making a political statement, she's more in earnest depicting simple everyday things: the mundane human needs of the wandering Nomads yearning to be home; the young 'mule' boys struggling for meager living yet looking out for each other; teachers seeking pupils in exchange for food. It's philosophical: through the course of the journey, the fate of the blackboards goes through transitions as situations demand - even "let go." Survival and adaptability co-exist.
Samira has a good mentor - her father Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who is a collaborator on the writing of "Blackboards" and her first feature, "Apple, The" 1998 (a bold unique storytelling in docu-drama format). She also has the expert assistance of cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafori, who previously worked with her on "Apple." Bahman Ghobadi is the actor who portrayed the teacher who ran into the expedition of the young 'mule' boys with contraband goods on their backs. He was the writer-director-producer of the film "A Time for Drunken Horses" 2000, and here in "Blackboards," it's déjà vu - this time is not of snowy setting, but included brief dramatic storyline between him and the boys. Reality is still bitter truth, but Samira kept the element of humanity intact.
Other efforts from the Makhmalbaf family include: "Day I Became A Woman, The" 2000 by Marzieh Meshkini, Mohsen's wife. "How Samira Made the Blackboards" (it'd be interesting to see how Samira shot the film in such arduous circumstances and with mostly non-professional cast with wide age differences) by Mezssam Makhmalbaf, Samira's brother. Father Mohsen Makhmalbaf did "Gabbeh" 1996 and "Kandahar" 2001.
More Iranian films? Try writer-director Majid Majidi's "Baran" 2001 - a poignant story about a young man (17-year old) in Tehran, how he matures through his deeds in trying to help an illegal Afghan of a poor family - it's a rich human story from the filmmaker who gave us "Color of Paradise" 2000 and "Children of Heaven" 1999.