In Kiarostami's masterpiece Close Up, the fake Makhmalbaf mentions this film as an example of the profound sympathy this director has for the poor and the underdogs. So, actually I was determined to like this film, but the real Makhmalbaf makes it really tough for me to feel anything for this movie.
There is the poor refugee from Afghanistan. He tries every means to raise money for his hospitalized wife. One time he tries rather clumsily to commit suicide by placing himself under a bus. Then he becomes he only attraction of an improvised circus. It is claimed that he can bicycle around the square a whole week. Wagers are made if he can it or cannot and also some dark mafia-like politicians try to sabotage his effort. Why these politicians are mingled into this plot,escaped my attention. In he end he wins, but like another Sisyphus he just circles on.
Makhmalbaf uses soap opera aesthetics for his film, which makes it almost impossible to watch. He uses also amateur actors, but their acting stays amateurish, never is lifted about the telenovela style. The wife for example tosses about the bed in the hospital and this is supposed to illustrate great pain. This is pain Ed Wood style. One thing is that the acting is minimalist throughout another thing is that the script never lets us enter beyond the poker face of the cyclist. No emotion, no sign of something going on inside the person.
The soundtrack places the movie outside Iran. I have read that this was a device to make the film pass through the censor board. Unfortunately also the music adds to the unbearable sentimentality of this film.
Certainly he tried to achieved something meaningful, but, I am afraid, that his capabilities cannot match his ambitions. I saw before his more recent film Sex and Philosophy. When I saw that, I thought that the absence of censors had emptied him for creative strategies, but now I see that there is not much to fetch here either. Makhmalbaf is just a wannabee poet in cinema.
2/10
There is the poor refugee from Afghanistan. He tries every means to raise money for his hospitalized wife. One time he tries rather clumsily to commit suicide by placing himself under a bus. Then he becomes he only attraction of an improvised circus. It is claimed that he can bicycle around the square a whole week. Wagers are made if he can it or cannot and also some dark mafia-like politicians try to sabotage his effort. Why these politicians are mingled into this plot,escaped my attention. In he end he wins, but like another Sisyphus he just circles on.
Makhmalbaf uses soap opera aesthetics for his film, which makes it almost impossible to watch. He uses also amateur actors, but their acting stays amateurish, never is lifted about the telenovela style. The wife for example tosses about the bed in the hospital and this is supposed to illustrate great pain. This is pain Ed Wood style. One thing is that the acting is minimalist throughout another thing is that the script never lets us enter beyond the poker face of the cyclist. No emotion, no sign of something going on inside the person.
The soundtrack places the movie outside Iran. I have read that this was a device to make the film pass through the censor board. Unfortunately also the music adds to the unbearable sentimentality of this film.
Certainly he tried to achieved something meaningful, but, I am afraid, that his capabilities cannot match his ambitions. I saw before his more recent film Sex and Philosophy. When I saw that, I thought that the absence of censors had emptied him for creative strategies, but now I see that there is not much to fetch here either. Makhmalbaf is just a wannabee poet in cinema.
2/10
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