Award-winning debut feature from Iranian writer/director Amirhossein Asgari immediately establishes itself as a worthy contender on the short list of strong, but unsentimental films on children at war. Dropped into some unknown Middle-East conflict, we’re left quite alone with a ten-yr-old boy living a sort of stealth life inside the wreck of a ruined freighter afloat on a river border between unnamed warring factions. Something of a Huck Finn character, this inventive kid has worked up solitary lodgings & employment of sorts catching & curing fish which he sneaks back to dry land to trade at a little store for necessities. Time-frame, allegiances, family ties, causes of war: all undisclosed. The boy’s unexplained existence baffling and admirable. (As if a war zone surrounded the island inhabited by Boy and Horse in the similarly dialogue-free early parts of THE BLACK STALLION/’79.*) He’s also a compelling physical presence, with a feral cat’s wary eyes, a bit like the boy in WHITE MANE/’53. So when someone does show up, a war child from the other side of the conflict, speaking a different language, it might be a bad news. (Possibly for the film, too, as it briefly threatens to drift into easy allegory, but is soon pulled back to its better instincts by the time two more ‘guests’ show up: an infant and an escaped American P.O.W. Asgari’s handling of the ship’s logistics is particularly impressive, he really makes you believe it’s happening. Very grim, though, other than a few moments when the infant turns playful or drowsy. The shipboard events needn’t turn into Buster Keaton’s THE NAVIGATOR/’24, though the situation isn’t so far removed, but a bit of variety wouldn’t be uncalled for. (The Keaton classic has a happy tag-ending, but its real end is a tragic one.) It took Asgari eight years to make another film (THE LAST SNOW/’22, not seen here), who knows when or if he’ll get the chance to mature. He certainly deserves it.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned above: BLACK STALLION; WHITE MANE. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-black-stallion-1979.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/02/crin-blanc-le-cheval-sauvage-white-mane.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Referencing THE NAVIGATOR perhaps not so far-fetched; this film’s poster might pass as a poster for the Keaton classic.
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