Where is the Friend’s Home?

Synopsis:
’’’’’Where Is the Friend’s Home?‘’’(Khane-ye doust kodjast?’’) is a 1987 Iranian film directed and written by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. The title of the film was derived from a poem by Sohrab Sepehri Iranian poet.”

The Address
The rider Asked in the twilight” where is the friend’s House? ”
Heaven paused
The passerby bestowed and the flood of light on his lips to darkness of sands
And pointed to a poplar and said:
“near the tree
Is a garden-line greener than God’s dream
Where love is bluer than the feathers of honesty
Walk to the end of the lane which emerges from
Behind puberty
Then turn towards the flower of solitude
Two steps to the flowers
Stay by the eternal mythological fountain of earth
Where a transparent fear will visit you
In the flowing intimacy of the space you will hear
A rustling sound
You will see a child
Who has ascended a tall plane tree to pick up
Chicks from the nest of light
Ask him
Where is the friend’s house?”
Sohrab Sepehri,(translated by:Mehdi Afshar)

(I just Wanted you get familiar (if you not) with Sohrab Sepehri Iranian Current Poet that has influenced Iranian artists a lot.)

story of the Ahmed, a young schoolboy who one day accidentally takes his friend’s notebook from school, prompting a desperate attempt to return it, lest his friend face expulsion at the hands of their hypocritical teacher.

ANALYSIS:

Where is the friend’s home? Is the film from eyes of the children of Iran.It is all about how children live in the adult’s world and how they perceive and deal with them. It is also about how children can understand each other and help each other to survive the power and rules of adults.

The film circles mostly around two motives limitation and discipline and the boy’s Innocent efforts to escape from these limitations. Where is the friend’s home? Is the film of limitation in every angel you look in the screenplay, in production, in everything which comes to mind And Children as most influential pillar of the society are more involved with this situation. we see a lot of scenes that show these limitations and disciplines in the Where is the friend’s home? For Example The boy’s grandfather tries to be hard on the boy (“My old man gave me a penny and a beating everyday…he sometimes forgot to give me the penny…but the beating…he never forgot to give me the beating…”) or his mother yells at him to obey the orders. all of these come from disciplines which try to make limitations .also in the films we see all the people exhausted in some way We see the boy’s mother in an unadulterated way – tired, overworked a strict disciplinarian with 3 kids, exhausted by her day. We see the underwhelmed schoolteacher, disappointed by his students and clearly unhappy with his job; the village door maker, at the end of his life, sharing his former glories and regrets to the boy, Ahmad’s classmate exhausted by the teacher.Also about the elder generation’s disciplines and traditions that makes new generation exhausted.

In the films also we see adults that ignore children and a lot of child laborer scenes. Abbas kiarostami masterly shows theses scenes without burnishes them .

Where is the friend’s Home ? is also a film about loyalty, Ahmad’s loyalty to his classmate, his loyalty to the ethics and his teacher(he could instead of searching his friend’s home easily at first do the homework but he knew that it is against the morality and ethics so he searched first and at last did the homework for his classmate.)

another element that comes to mind Kiarostami use of The zigzag paths. The zigzag path in Where is the Friend’s House? shows the many turns that the child has to take in order to find his friend. Similarly, the man who is driving on the hilly roads in Taste of Cherry is looking for someone to bury him. In Life and Nothing More…, the filmmaker has to find two children who acted in his previous film, following a deadly earthquake that shook northern Iran. Even sometimes the zigzagging movements of an object like an apple in The Wind Will Carry Us or the empty spray can in Close-Up show the randomness of fate. They are practically Kiarostami’s signatory shots.

The end was also so great Ahmad After all the hardship suffered to find the house of friend he found it but not the friend. it seems in this Odyssey reaching the friend is not the point. The Main point is the Odyssey itself .

At last I want to say that where is the friend’s home ? it is a film that makes connection to every one with different tastes, with different ages, with different beliefs , with different countries.it is so pure and so human that you don’t want to miss

_Vahid