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Powerful

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

In Abbas Kiraostami's acclaimed pseudo documentary, an unnamed director (Ferhad Khermanend, playing an alter ego of Kiarostami) and his young son to return to Koker, the setting of his great film "Where is the Friends Home", in the wake of the devastating 1990 earthquake that hit northern Iran. The movie is ostensibly about the search for the two boys who starred in the earlier film but it turns into a kind of fictional documentary about the strength of the human spirit in the face of disaster. the camera simply watching out the car window for much of the film, taking in the landscape, the ruins of mud houses, and the streams of homeless people hauling food and equipment to makeshift shelters. The villagers are fatalistic, believing that the earthquake was God's will, but the rebirth of the human spirit is symbolized by the fact that most people seem interested in watching the Italia 90 World Cup matches, despite their terrible tragedy they have gone through (many have lost their homes and family members). In a director with less sensibility, a movie like this would seem the shameless exploitation of a tragedy. The movie is not quite entertaining but it is compelling. The filming of this movie would itself be fictionalized by Kiarostami in Through the Olive Trees.

Naturally, before obtaining this film I checked with IMDb regarding its entertainment value. But I mis-read the plot. I thought the director (and his son) played themselves in the film. Now upon re-reading the user comments here, I discover they were played by actors. Very good actors. Also I discover only seven reviews of this work. So I feel obligated to increase that number by one.If you are a citizen of the U.S. who is registered to vote, you should also see this movie. All the people in this movie live in Iran. Iran is one of those oil-rich countries which is weaker than the U.S., making it an attractive target for American invasion. Iran is a sovereign nation, and should not be invaded.

There is a long intro before the title. A film director and his son are shown driving in a small beat-up car to northern Iran soon after the 1990 earthquake. When the car enters a long tunnel, the camera keeps rolling and on the darken screen the titles finally appear.The film director is nominally Kiarostami, but played by an actor. Typical for his films, the documentary genre blurs with the fictional account. The devastation that we see from the moving car is real, though the lamentations we witness are probably staged, which does not diminish the sense of suffering of the affected local communities.The impetus of this travelogue through a torn landscape is to locate at least one of the kids that was his main character in one of his previous films, "Khaneh-je doost kojast?". That quest is the director's central preoccupation, so much so he does not recognize another boy, who he gives a lift to, that had a secondary role in that film. If you see the aforementioned film, you will clearly remember the face.The quest is made difficult by roads that have been gutted or blocked by rock and earth slides, and by the steep mountainous terrain of his goal, the small town of Koker. As he gets tantalizing close, we root for him.The way the film ends may be disappointing to some, but I found that it matched the title of the film, "And Life Goes On". For the survivors of the earthquake there is mourning for the dead, but at the same time the 1990 World Soccer Cup is going on. What team will make it to the final? While houses have to be rebuilt, it is also important that TV antennas be lifted so that all can see the games in the evening. The director will make more films but now he is concerned about the well-being of that child actor. So life goes on, the quest must go on. There is no ending.

Life and Nothing More (1992, dir. Abbas Kiarostami) What is so unusual about Kiarostami's films? They seem to to inhabit a world that is so ordinary, mundane even, and yet they are lent a sense of wonder as well. The simplicity of action and story is undermined by circumstances that reveal the courage that it takes just in order to live. Here a man and his son are driving to Koker, a town which has been devastated by the Iranian earthquake. Along the way they come across people who are carrying their belongings, food supplies, heaters, etc. after having lost everything. They stop to ask for directions. One woman can't help them, breaks out in tears, "I've lost 16 people" The man can only say, "May god grant you forbearance." There is no easy sentimentalism. Here life goes on for those that survive in spite of it all. There is still the need to fill ones life with love and joy and momentary pleasure. One man talks of his plan to get married in his hometown, despite the disaster. The son talks to his friend about watching a soccer game. He becomes terrifically excited by the building of an antenna at one of the nearby villages which will allow him to watch the game. You see none of the horrific footage of mangled bodies and uncontrollably hysterical victims that we usually associate with natural disasters. You only see people who have experienced tragedy, but continue to live and endure.