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Good concept, poorly executed.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The Iranian movie Bicycleran was shown in the U.S. with the title The Cyclist (1987). It was written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. (Makhmalbaf is the director of the highly acclaimed film Kandahar. He is also the director who is impersonated by the protagonist in the Kiarostami movie Close-Up.)Moharram Zaynalzadeh plays Nasim, an Afghani refugee in Iran. His wife is near death from illness, and Nasim--although he is intelligent and eager to work--cannot afford to pay for her medical care.In Afghanistan, Nasim was a serious bicyclist who once was able to ride his bike continually for three days. Now, in order to obtain money, he agrees to ride the bike for seven days straight.There are multiple sub-plots involving gamblers who are pro- or anti-Nasim, but I found that aspect of the movie very confusing. The problem is that the real plot is Nasim's suffering as he continues to cycle around and around the circle. However, you can't have a movie showing nothing but a man riding a bicycle, so director Makhmalbaf had to find something to show us other than that. What he shows us offers a glimpse of society in Iran, and a harsh look at the oppression of the Afghans that have fled there. I thought the movie would be in black, white, and gray. Absolutely incorrect--the Iranian urban scenes (at least in 1987) were a riot of noise and color. The film is filled with activity, both at the cycling site and the city around the site.We saw the film on DVD, where it worked very well. Any film will work better in a theater than on a small screen, but The Cyclist didn't suffer much by the transfer to DVD. As I write this review, The Cyclist has an IMDb rating of 7.4, which is good. I thought it was even better than that, and gave it a 9. However, it's not a movie for everyone. I don't know what audience The Cyclist had in Iran, but in the U.S. this film is definitely for people who like unusual foreign movies with sub-titles. We love unusual foreign movies with sub-titles, so we thought it was great.

The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week.What strikes me most about this film is not even the film itself, which has many good qualities. It is the world that is being filmed. With the Middle East constantly in the news, the region is a common focus of American movies. But seeing the people through the eyes of a director who lives there... it is a completely different experience.One scholar has analyzed the film as an allegory which parallels the exploitation that Afghan refugees suffer from in Iran and from which they are unable to escape. I do not know enough to comment on this, though it is interesting to note that Mohsen Makhmalbaf, although Iranian, does seem to have a preoccupation with the Afghan people.

From its premise, Mohsen Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist sounds like a film from the Italian Neo-Realist Tradition of Vittorio De Sica ala The Bicycle Thief. The protagonists in both films represent the under-privileged working class - victims of socio-economic disparity who must endure a daily struggle just to make ends meet. Although Makhmalbaf shows a great deal of compassion to the plight of the migrant, he is interested in exploring other avenues as well. Not content with merely documenting the events that unfold, he quickly strays into the more subjective, stylized world, reminiscent of Federico Fellini, who as it happens, also "abandoned" his Neo-Realist roots. The Cyclist resembles in part, one of the vignettes in Fellini's masterpiece La Dolce Vita – the Miracle at the Field, where two rural children claim to have sighted the Virgin Mary. The media circus and the carnival like atmosphere that ensues are similar in both films.The grotesque, distorted portraiture of Fellini is employed liberally by Makhmalbaf. The skewed camera angles, the chiaroscuro compositions and wide-lenses all help in creating a surreal, phantasmagoric atmosphere. Makhmalbaf's film occasionally even ventures into lurid melodrama – especially the scenes of Nasim's wife in the hospital - however these are more reminiscent of the silent expressionistic works of Murnau and Dreyer, rather than the lush, Technicolor dreamscapes of Douglas Sirk. Also, the melodrama is used more as a satirical device to exaggerate the absurdity of Nasim's situation, and of man's inhumanity against man, rather than as a ploy to evoke an emotional response from the viewer. In only his third feature length film, Makhmalbaf is already brimming with confidence. He paints with broad strokes and is unafraid of using grand gestures.Moharram Zaynalzadeh as Nasim is perfectly cast in the title role. His long, bearded face and stoic expression convey the lament and yearning of the cyclist. The shawl draped across his head gives him the appearance of a medieval monk. He becomes a Messianic figure – a holy martyr who through the course of the film bears the sins of others. The cycling exhibition at times resembles a passion play where Nasim is continually crucified. It resembles the masochistic acts caused by religious fervor – pious acts of self-sacrifice, where catharsis is attained through extensive suffering. The most potent symbol of the film is the wheel. It is a recurring motif that appears at various junctures in the film. It is a metaphor for the ritual of human existence and represents the cycle of life and death. When Nasim watches an old man attempt suicide, it is under the wheels of a truck. When he dreams that his son is falling into a well, it is the large spinning wheel of the pulley that is once again the culprit. Circularity in general is a very crucial element in Makhmalbaf's oeuvre. From the stunt motorcyclist in the spherical pit, the well that Nasim and his son dig, to the cycling exhibition – the film is rife with such imagery. At the end of the film, Nasim fulfills his task and has completed 7 days of non-stop cycling. But now he is unable to stop. Despite repeated pleas from the crowd and his son, he continues circling the empty square. The exercise has fully become a Dantean circle of hell – a never-ending vicious cycle for Nasim. This striking image brings to mind the films of German auteur Werner Herzog, particularly Stroszek and Even Dwarfs started small. Both these films also end on a rather ambivalent note with a truck circling endlessly around an empty space. The protagonists in these films also happen to be outsiders; marginal characters that exist on the fringe of society - like Nasim. The absurd ending also evokes the literary works of Albert Camus, where Sisyphus, a character from Greek Mythology, is doomed to roll a rock up a hill for all eternity, only to watch it tumble down as he reaches the top.The Cyclist assumes the role of the Absurdist hero that Camus talks about in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus.Although Nasim succeeds in achieving his goal, the ending of the film is a far cry from a "Triumph of the Human Spirit" movie that comes out of the dream factories of Hollywood. Nasim's wife continues to battle for life in the hospital, so even though he has overcome this particular obstacle, his respite will be brief. He will have to resume his daily struggle if life is to go on. Makhmalbaf does not sugar coat this harsh reality for the viewer. The vicious cycle keeps perpetuating itself over and over. The wheel keeps on turning.

A middle-aged Afghani man is alarmed when his wife falls very ill in Teheran. He has no money to pay the bill. He must look after his young son. To raise money to pay for his wife's care he undertakes an endurance contest. He attempts to ride a bicycle for 5 days without stopping.He circles the same city square, surrounded by onlookers. This is a spectacle. He is a showman in a circus environment. The cyclist becomes the talk of the town. Will he make it? Bets are placed. Various gamblers try to sabotage his attempts, so they will win their bets. Various persons in the crowd cheer the cyclist on, making him their temporary hero.Director Makhmalbaf has made a splendid film about an ordinary man, driven to desperate acts. Various scenes in the movie are elegantly shot. Performances are credible. This is one film where I really cared about what happened to the characters.veloc