Regardless of the fact that Ashgar Farhadi brought Iran two Oscars in the category of the best foreign film, Abbas Kiarostami will most certainly remain the most important filmmaker of that Central Asian country for all time. “Where is my friend’s house?” it is also the first part of the informal trilogy Koker, named after the village in the north of Iran where the action of this drama takes place, as well as the later ones “Life, and Nothing More” and “Through the Olive Trees”. “Where is the Friend’s House?” it was also the first film in which Kiarostami drew international attention to himself, and this drama won the Bronze Leopard at the festival in Locarno, Switzerland.
Although Kiarostami started filming in the sixties and is part of the Iranian new wave, he only gained international fame and the status of a favorite art filmmaker in the second half of the eighties. He adopted an almost documentary, naturalistic style, and the main protagonists in his films were often children. Such is the case with this drama, which takes place in a poor village in the north of the country during the Iran-Iraq war. And the story is apparently quite simple. In the opening scene, we see a class attended by seven or eight-year-old boys, and the teacher is pestering a student who keeps forgetting to bring a notebook with homework.
If this happens to him again, the teacher warns, he will be kicked out of school, but when Ahmad arrives home in his village, he will realize that he has mistakenly put Mohammad Reza’s notebook in his bag, who clearly does not write well. If Mohammad Reza comes to school the next day without his notebook and homework, he flies out of school, and contrary to his mother’s orders, young Ahmad will head to another village to find his schoolmate and return his notebook. Although the story here is simple, Kiarostami made a delicate film that brings an insight into Iranian society in a way perhaps never seen before.
It was the rural society that interested Kiarostami the most, and he set most of his films precisely in the province and dealt with the fates of ordinary people, almost following the example of the author who had perhaps the most influence on him, the Indian Satyajit Ray. Although “Where Is the Friend’s House?” feature film, it is an incredible drama in which the borders between feature film and documentary are almost completely erased, and this style and expression was further perfected by Kiarostami in the later phase of his career. All those who follow Iranian films and had the opportunity to watch something from this great cinematography, probably know very well what influence Kiarostami had on all those who appeared later. Perhaps the best example of a film made under his influence is “Children of Paradise” by Majid Majidi, which was nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign film.