• Homework

  • Homework

  • Breaktime

  • Orderly or Disorderly

Homework

(Mashq-e shab)

Digital Restoration

Only Kiarostami could turn a documentary about homework into a delightful, absorbing, and stirring portrait of the “human condition.” The style is simplicity itself: the film consists of a series of interviews with several little boys (and, occasionally, with their parents) about the Iranian school system and its methods of assigning homework. Beleaguered by their rigorous workload, the boys complain of adults’ insensitivity and rigidity, or parents who will not or cannot help them because of illiteracy or poverty. Though the boys’ woe is palpable and rending, the film closes with a moment of soaring Kiarostamian grace: a boy reciting a poem he loves from memory as his friend looks on. “Homework does not follow the rules. One learns the rules but reaches a moment when one has to throw them away and approach the whole concept of filmmaking with one’s heart and feelings” (Kiarostami).

James Quandt
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Abbas Kiarostami
Cinematographer
  • Iraj Safavi
Language
  • Farsi
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 86 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
Preceded By

Breaktime
(Zang-e tafrih)
(Recess)

Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1972

A dark tale in which a boy is punished for misbehaving at school—and when freedom rings, life outside doesn’t welcome his participation either.

FILM DETAILS 
Language
  • No dialogue
  • Text in Farsi with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 11 mins
source
  • Janus Films

Orderly or Disorderly
(Be tartib va bedoun-e tartib)

Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1981

Demonstrations of how to behave properly in real-life scenarios; here, though, reality and cinema are at odds.

FILM DETAILS 
Language
  • Farsi
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 15 mins
source
  • Janus Films