BLACKBOARDS ½
On the cruel road.In Kurdish, with English subtitles. Running time: 85 minutes. Not rated (nothing objectionable). At the Quad, 13th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
THE poetic, heartbreaking Iranian movie “Blackboards” opens with 10 or so men, blackboards strapped to their backs, making their way along a desolate, windy mountain road.
They’re itinerant teachers, roaming the bleak Iranian landscape in search of work.
“Come learn to multiply. You won’t need to pay me much,” one of the men tells anybody who’ll listen.
“Blackboards” concentrates on two of the teachers.
Said (Said Mohamadi) hooks up with a large band of Iraqi Kurds – mostly old men – promising to help them find their way back to their homeland.
The other, Reeboir (Bahman Ghobadi), joins a caravan of dust-covered boys – “mules,” they call themselves – hauling contraband into Iraq.
“Blackboards” is the second feature by the amazing Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of Iranian filmmaker Moshen Makhmalbaf, a superstar on the festival circuit.
Shot two years ago, when she was 20, the film took the grand jury prize at Cannes; her first feature, the acclaimed “The Apple,” was filmed when she was a mere 18.
“Blackboards” paints a glum picture.
Makhmalbaf sees little hope for her subjects, who spend every second of their lives trying just to survive.
In addition to dealing with the cruel weather and landscape, and the shortage of food and water, they must dodge land mines, soldiers’ bullets and chemical weapons.
(A blackboard is a handy shield when bullets fly, they learn.)
Still, Makhmalbaf finds room for moments of humor and humanity.
Said offers his blackboard, his only means of earning a living, as a makeshift stretcher for an ailing old man, then seeks to marry the man’s daughter, offering his board as a dowry.
“Blackboards” is enhanced by the strong, realistic performances that Makhmalbaf coaxes from her mostly unprofessional cast.
Perhaps it’s because their real lives are so close to the dismal ones they portray on screen.
