A young Iranian boy scrimps and scams his way onto a bus to see his favorite soccer team play in the big city of Tehran, but seeing the game becomes just as hard as getting to the game, in this memorable first film by Abbas Kiarostami.

In beautiful black and white, Kiarostami echoes the Italian Neo-realist films of the 40’s, and there’s no denying that the boy’s determination has a similar doomed aura to it as the desperate man searching for his stolen bike in “Bicycle Thieves”, but there’s also a playful childlike quality that lends itself to comparisons with “The 400 Blows” as well.

A final dream sequence, rare for Kiarostami, and Neo-realism, is haunting and frightening, and literally represents the end of this boy’s innocence.