Blackboards (2000)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Such a frustrating disappointment

Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely Fantastic

Blackboards -- Persian/Kurdish name تخته سیه -- takhte siyah, where تخته (takht) means board and سیه (siyah) is dark. I don't know anything about Persian but with my limited knowledge of Arabic I could make it out.If you are looking for a charismatic film, with a flamboyant young hero, great action, sensuous, colorful heroine or for a great fighting sequence and men jumping out of a flight and your adrenaline pumping till the end of the movie -- you should NOT be watching this. This is my 2nd.film of Samira Makhmalbaf that I am watching after ' At 5 in the afternoon.' There is no point in comparing the 2 work of art but I would consider this film, as a real stroke of the genius.If you are looking for a story line -- it has NOTHING, primarily Samira's and her father Mohsen Makhmalbaf does not have a specific story line. It is a journey - a journey of a Kurdish teacher during the 8 years long Iran- Iraq war which commenced in 1980.Said Mohamadi or Said is a Kurdish teacher, who carries at his back a blackboard - which in many ways become a symbol of love, war, marriage and separation. He carries the multiplication table of 2 and 3 and yearns to teach the young people. The film starts with a lot of teachers معلمان -- or 'mualamin' -- as you will hear the word quiet often in the film, walking on a rugged terrain of Iran, searching for students. They talk of desperation and frustration about the dearth of students. Is the director, Samira/Mohsen trying to put up an irony ? Who is willing to learn? Are we, the civilized people, living under favorable condition willing to learn? Then, why to blame the Kurds who struggle every moment for food and water willing to learn?Then suddenly they hear the gun fire from the helicopters and the group disperses, each moving in their own direction. Said, then joins a group of people who are walking and Said promises to take them to the border. The deal got finalized over 45 walnuts !! The person in the group agrees to give it to Said once they reach the group. Samira Makhmalbaf, shows her ingenuity in selecting different characters in the group. An old man, suffering from urinary problem, a woman carrying her child and few other people who are struggling for food, water, maladies of varied degrees. All those characters, are submerged into an unison -- fight for existence. Said is unable to find a single person who is willing to learn and faces the denial on a repetitive manner. Finally a young boy Reeboir agrees to learn. The film portrays Said as a altruist, who endangers his life to teach his students. When chased by the rebels, the film shows Said constantly uttering the multiplication table and the correct pronunciation of Reeboir, when clambering down the hills Said is rising and so his only student Reeboir.The young boys, they call themselves mules are clueless about where they are going. They are not willing to learn.The blackboard symobilzes the man's journey -- becomes an object of need when required. When a young boy falls down the cliff, Said's black board is cut into and given an aid to his amputated limb, as a support to dry clothing and a shelter to hide during the gunfire. Said gets married to Halaleh played by Behnaz Jafari just behind the blackboard and she asks her dowry -- a blackboard.The film hovers around the struggle, suffering and mankind's zeal to survive under the most unfavorable conditions. I would not conclude the film here as there is a inconspicuous ending......What happens at the end is predictable but how it happens is what the genius of Samira and Mohsen Makhmalbaf shows us.To me it is not just a film - it is actually what is happening and that is how it happens and that is what reality is. Reality in film is best shown here and we should rise up from the romanticism of our thoughts and embrace the truth.

I've seen a lot of foreign movies and enjoyed them. I rarely comment on any film whatsoever, but this one came so highly praised and so poorly performing that I had to comment on it and warn others. What the &*^$ where the people at Cannes thinking when this was given the Jury Award? I have no idea...Get ready to watch a very slow account of two traveling teachers as they accompany other travels on their way across the Iraq/Iran border. I could not stop watching the movie because I was waiting for something to happen. It didn't. The teachers constantly try to teach people how to read and write, but everyone ignores them. I mean, seriously ignores them. Every time one of them asks a question they have to repeat it about 5 times The others travelers are permanently depressed and silent. Its hard to have any sympathy for them: there is extremely little known about the characters, no development, they show no willingness to accomplish anything except trek across the next mountain and hide from unseen helicopters and soldiers.The one positive comment I could make is that the landscape backdrops are quite amazing and the people are realistically gritty.By far the biggest disappointment.

I have nothing against slow movies -- for instance kiarostami is a huge favorite of mine. But I have to admit, this film really pushes the slow-and-obtuse envelope. it's mainly the script. the teachers encounter various nomads and desperately harangue them to hire them as teachers... when people refuse, they just repeat themselves again and again, and it seems that nobody really listens to anyone else. it's a study in harshness. it leans heavily on symbolism, and you feel that the whole thing is totally constructed by the filmmaker, that no respect at all is being paid to naturalism or the kinds of reactions that people would likely have in a situation like this. so, if you're really excited by a symbol-filled, quite stark time, you will appreciate this. I wasn't up for it.

okay, now i know that this won an award at cannes but i can only presume that this is because the judges were working under the principle that seems to afflict literary critics from time to time. if it is incomprehensible then it cant be really bad, and who knows it might be great.in a handout which i picked up in the cinema the director confesses to the fact that after each days shooting she then went and wrote the screenplay for the next days filming! now i am no movie mainstream boy, i like to be challenged by films and i like films that require effort. however, i do like films that appear to have something to say, not necessarily a simple beginning, middle, end storyline but at least something in terms of character development if not plot development.it just makes me wonder what the reaction to this film would have been if it had been made in Britain or the USA or France? would everyone be saying its breathtaking and moving and a truly political film? or would we have been saying to the director 'next time work out what you want to say or how you are going to say it...or even better both'. last comment must go to my faithful fellow cinema goers who laughed when the titles came up and someone was credited with writing the script. the smile on my face was not so much through laughter as a wince of uncomprehending pain.