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The Evil Dead (1981)

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Director Céline Sciamma and Adèle Haenel review the monitor on the set of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

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The Handmaiden (2016) has so much lesbian scissoring because it's actually a metaphor for them cutting men out of their lives

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Between Ryan Gosling Ken and Benoit Blanc I'm starting to think that it's some sort of animal abuse to keep casting big name actors in stoic macho manly man rolls instead of giving them goofy little guys to play. Like look at them their coats are shiny, they seem so much more lively and energetic. We need to make sure all actors have enough goofy little guys to play before peta gets involved.

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Where is the Friend's House?

(1987, Iran, dir: Abbas Kiarostami)

Grandfather's Friend: What I mean to say is, suppose the kid did nothing wrong. What would you do? What then?

Grandfather: I'd find an excuse and give him a beating every other week. So he wouldn't forget.

If I could somehow convince everyone I know to watch one film, the more I think about it the more I think it would be this one. This is for many reasons, but for starters I think it's more accessible than many other favorites of mine.

The plot here is very straightforward easy to follow. In short, an 8 year old boy named Ahmed realizes that he took his friend Mohamed's notebook by mistake. This wouldn't be a huge problem, but Mohamed has just been told that day that if he forgets to do his homework in his notebook again he will be expelled, no excuses. Ahmed, realizing the gravity of this decides to go and look for his friend's house in the next town over. That is, quite literally, the entire story. Following Ahmed as he get more desperate to return a notebook and the challenges he faces along the way.

As a result of this simplicity this is a very easy first venture for people watching foreign films for the first time, this simplicity also carried into the cinematography and themes. This is not to say that it isn't impactful, rather it is because of this simplicity that the film is so impactful.

Throughout Ahmed's journey he is dismissed and ignored by adults, they don't understand how important this is or figure that it is Mohamed's own fault he will get expelled. The only people to really help Ahmed are other children. They try to give him directions if they can, although undetailed give Ahmed some idea of where to go. Ahmed travels, zigzagging through the landscape and you truly feel stressed for this child, trying to do the right thing even though adults the adults around him don't think he should. They have lost their sense of empathy, they don't care. Kiarostami urges the audience to return to that childlike naivety, the camera often is from a lower perspective, putting you in a child's perspective. You look up at the distances that must be traveled, up at the adults who say that he should focus on his own homework instead, up at the potential homes of Mohamed. This all serves the idea that we should return to that feeling, life isn't every man for himself, but rather we should support and help each other when we can.

What I think is most important here, however, is how this film stresses that children are their own people with their own concerns, problems, and lives. To treat them as anything less is a disservice and ultimately harmful. This is particularly important to me since I've recently been working in education, and set to start out a new job in the field soon. I don't know the background of every student, and I never will. Regardless I must meet every student on their terms, much unlike that of the teacher in this film. This empathy is something that I think most people could use a reminder in, in which this film is more than perfect for.

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Where Is the Friend's Home?(1987), dir. Abbas Kiarostami

(1st part of Koker Trilogy)