Blackboards

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Audience Member This little art house film coming from one of these country we never really hear from, Kurdistan. It's the story of two teachers traveling with blackboards on their backs traveling with a bunch of refugees and trying each in their own way to teach people to read and educate them. It's not the usual type of film, nothing here is straightforward, everything is minimalistic & raw. Still it's a good film. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member The mountainous terrain here on the Iran-Iraq border is truly spectacular and to think that Samira Makhmalbaf must have directed these actors, both very young and very old, to run, crawl, and do arduous things across this terrain lends the film a (slight) Herzogian tension. But otherwise this is a straightforward neorealist tale of two itinerant teachers with blackboards strapped to their backs seeking pupils in tiny villages. You have to wonder: "is this for real?" (in the modern world). At least one of the teachers does things that don't appear motivated (or very intelligent), such as getting married to a stranger on the spot without talking to her first. Ultimately, the film is heart-breaking because of the lives and fates of the characters that the teachers meet (and the teachers themselves). If it doesn't hold together as well as Bicycle Thieves, that's probably why it hasn't achieved classic status. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member It kind of broke my heart the first time I watched it. And today's review even hurts more. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a simple yet very stunning character-driven film made with care by all concerned. The production is competent throughout and in every department, but it's the outstanding performance of Bahman Ghobadi as the very likeable Reeboir, who shines the brightest. A very pleasing and consistently humane tale. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Released in 2000, BLACKBOARDS was the second film by Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of acclaimed Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf and a precocious director in her own right. As the film opens, a group of itinerant teachers lug blackboards into the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan, seeking to bring education to this illiterate, impoverished region in exchange for some meagre income. Two the teachers quickly branch off from the group, and the film follows their adventures. Saïd (Saïd Mohamadi) falls in with a group of nomads trying to get back to their native land across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Rebwar (Bahman Ghobadi) meets a group of children transporting contraband over the border. The teacher's efforts to help the locals learn read and write are rebuffered time and time again, to the point that the film takes on the quality of a play by Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter. Saïd's attempts to get through to the lone woman in the party (Behnaz Jafari) are the height of absurdism. Samira Makhmalbaf's visual aesthetic is mainly that of her father's early films, and the film evokes the beauty of this mountainous region, as well as the desolation that causes its poverty. And it's cool that the dialogue is in Kurdish, as there aren't so many films available in the West that highlight this people. However, I must say that I found other aspects disappointing. BLACKBOARDS makes a thought-provoking point that the poor are too busy surviving to worry about ideals like education, but the script doesn't really hang together. The acting is also inconsistent, with a big disconnect between the professional actors and the local Kurds who were brought on. You might take a chance on BLACKBOARDS. I certainly don't regret seeing it, it's memorable and there's some humour. But I remain unsatisfied. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Audience Member The beautiful and talented (sorry but it's true) Iranian director Samira Makhmalbef directed her first movie 'The Apple' when she was 17 (she had already directed two video productions) and when she was 23 made the extraordinary and inspirational Afghanistan-set 'At Five in the Afternoon'. If you haven't seen them, do so. 'Blackboards' was made when she was 19 and is something else again. Its setting is after the chemical bombing of Halabjaby by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (do you remember when we use to call this 'the Gulf War'?) and shows a group of Kurdish refugees - the script is entirely in Kurdish. It focuses on one of a group of young teachers. Each of these young men has only one possession, an old-fashioned blackboard carried on his back. One of the teachers finds various uses for his blackboard - as a stretcher, and as dowry - he has nothing else. Another falls in with a group of young boys who make their living out of smuggling - no need for education here then. This is one of the most striking movies that I have ever seen. Almost entirely devoid of optimism, eyeball-searingly bleak, it defies classification and intelligible synopsis, or perhaps I mean, by me anyhow Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Blackboards

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