The setup: Nematzadeh has been warned three times to write his homework in his book, and not on scraps of paper – next time he will be expelled. Ahmed takes Nematzadeh’s book home by mistake and wants desperately to return it. Defying his mom (who completely does not listen) and grandfather (who chats to a neighbor about discipline, saying kids need to be beaten without cause), Ahmed goes off to a neighboring town, asks around, and looks for his friend. Ultimately unsuccessful, he goes home and does the homework twice in both books, sneaking Nematzadeh’s book back in time to avoid punishment. Besides the grandfather bit, there’s another slowdown sidetrack with an elderly man who leads Ahmed to the wrong house while bemoaning that the townsfolk are replacing the wooden doors he made for them forty years ago with new iron ones. If the grandfather/disciple and old man/wood doors bits come together into some grand meaningful theme with the accidentally stolen book, I don’t know what that would be exactly. Maybe the still-in-print book on Kiarostami co-authored by Jonathan Rosenbaum would help me figure it out. Wow, it’s under $14 at amazon, and me with a birthday next week…

Site of the schoolbook mixup… Ahmed helps, while Nematzadeh checks the camera:

Ahmed explains the situation:

Ahmed listens patiently to his elders:

MAY 2025: Of course this became the first part of a trilogy, which makes less sense when you watch the films in reverse order and years apart, so now I’m rewatching ’em properly via the Criterion box set.

Kiarostami’s signature shot, blu edition: