<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > preface:</h1>
Iran is a country with a peculiar demographic composition.
With a population of more than 80 million, more than half of the population is children and adolescents.
Try to quickly recall the famous Iranian movies, and the first thing that comes to mind is nothing more than "Little Shoes", "Growing Up", "Turtles Fly", "The Colors of Heaven", "Where Is My Friend's Home"...
What they have in common is that the protagonists are all children.
"Turtles Can Fly" (2004) Douban 8.8
Children are an important part of Iran, and children's films are the façade of Iranian films and the representatives of Oriental films that compete with Hollywood blockbusters.
Children's films in Iran are naturally not young films in the general sense, let alone for children.
These films, starting from the daily encounters of children, face various social problems, express complaints about Iran's political disputes, internal and external wars, and religious struggles over the past century, show sympathy for the bottom, and then precipitate the innocent and beautiful side of the dirty world through the perspective of children.
Continuing the strengths and style of children's films, Iran has handed over a god work, "Castle of Dreams", which tells the story of a father and two children.
"Castle of Dreams" Douban 7.6
"Castle of Dreams" swept last year's Shanghai International Film Festival, winning three awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
The Hollywood Reporter described it as "an ingenious and delicate psychodrama" that reveals the meaning and blame of fatherhood.
Despite the many political and economic challenges Iran has faced in recent years as a result of sanctions, it seems that the more unstable Iran becomes, the more calm Iranian cinema becomes, as is the case with Castle of Dreams.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, Psychic Road Movie, How to Become a Qualified Father</h1>
The first shot of the film draws people in, and it is the first perspective of the child looking at the outside through the mask.
The protagonist is the sudden intruder father Jerro, a depressed, bearded bastard who went to prison for committing crimes in the early years, missed three years of his wife and children's lives, and later never saw each other again.
This time, he came back because his ex-wife Shirin was seriously ill and hospitalized, and there was not much time left.
Jerro came to Shirin's sister's house for his wife's SUV. Jerro knew that Shirin would never need it anymore, so he found a seller in advance and wanted to exchange some money.
However, Shirin and her sister still gave the two children to Jerro, and since the father returned, he should take care of the children and not let them stay at the aunt's house all the time.
Faced with the two children they met for the first time, Gero acted anxious and hesitant. There was no choice but to take them on the road with them.
Sister Sarah, who looks like Xiulan Temple when she was a child, with long blond hair and big eyes, her sunny appearance can dispel the clouds that hang over the family at the moment, spreading happiness all the way, full of anticipation of the dream castle built by her father.
Brother Ali, who was only a little older than Sarah, but much more mature and sober, did not talk much, he kept his mother's credit card, controlled the family's finances, and always looked at his father with a pessimistic and questioning look.
Two children with huge personalities are meeting their father Jerro for the first time, but they are not timid. Because her mother, Shirin, has been helping Jerro to portray his father in front of her children, Shirin deceives them that the gifts for his birthday are all given by his father, and that his father has a gorgeous fantasy castle in some mysterious place.
After Gero drove on the road, the film became a psychic road movie. There is no definite end to this journey, it is always on the road, or the end point in everyone's heart is different.
The end of the children's expectation is the father's dream castle; and the end of the father Jarrow is to think about how to get rid of these two children and sell the car as soon as possible.
In photographer Morteza Hodaei's shot, the car passes through some picturesque places, which are not the Iran we remember. In the following relationship, a series of accidents occurred around the three people and the various spaces where the car was parked.
These events may seem random and unrelated, but they are all slowly cultivating the feelings of a triple, a broken family, struggling for a real connection.
The children try to communicate with their mysterious father, and Gero goes from initially cold accusations to gradually opening up, just as Sarah tells Jerro that she likes the smell of gasoline, and Gero hesitates for a moment and replies to her, "Yes, I like it too." ”
Along the way, they also met many people, including Jerro's current girlfriend, the owner of the flower garden who hired Shirin to work, the traffic policeman who blocked the road, and all the unpleasant quarrels.
Jerro's girlfriend learns about Shirin and the two children and leaves angrily; Jerro suspects that Shirin's former boss has done something wrong with her and gives him a slap; the policeman who stands in the way, because of speeding, detains Jarrow's car, and the "old jianghu" Jerro makes a move of "first bribe and then expose", and is able to escape smoothly.
Going around, people coming and going, tossing and turning all day, it was already twilight, and the car was still the three of them. Jerro continued to drive forward, Sarah fell asleep, Ali took out his tablet, played some of the images recorded by his mother during the hospital, and cried as he watched it.
At the end of the movie, their car hits a fox. Ali cried and begged his father to get out of the car to save the fox, but Jerro perfunctorily said to Ali, "There are no foxes near here, we just hit a rock." ”
It is conceivable that if according to the character of Jerro at the beginning of the movie, cold and irresponsible, he would never waste his time on such a thing, but now he is different.
After a brief silence, Jerro pulls the car aside, pushes the door open, and the movie ends.
The film leaves two questions at this point. One is the question that the audience is most concerned about: Will Jerro raise the two children?
The screenwriter chose to keep the suspense of this question, which was unanswered from the beginning, but the action of stopping and opening the door was enough to give us the answer.
The other is the most concerned question for children: where is the legendary dream castle?
There was never a dream castle, and the dilapidated SUV was the dream castle, or rather, the father himself was a castle. He needs to satisfy the imagination of the children, to become a castle that shelters the children from the wind and rain, to become a qualified father.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, love from the family, is the basis for solving problems</h1>
From "The Bike Thief" and "East of Eden" to "Fences" and "Guardianship", the memorable fathers in those movies often have all kinds of serious flaws.
After all, compared with the good fathers who have always held their children in the palm of their hands, those fathers with selfish and impulsive desires, considering that their behavior will invisibly affect their children, so they compromise in front of their children and try to change their own drama, which is always more impressive.
Hamood Behad portrays Jerro as a mature and repressed father who transitions from "physical intimacy" to "psychological intimacy" with his children, in the words of the director: "In a world of violence, a helpless person can be tamed by sweet dreams in the face of harsh realities." ”
"Castle of Dreams" does not have a complete storyline, no brilliant and thick colors, and does not deliberately sculpt the plot, with documentary shooting techniques, with gray and dark tones, focusing on the spiritual world of children, and then extending the discussion of women's status, marriage freedom, and the gap between rich and poor.
These complex social issues are ultimately confined to the family. In children, we see the beauty of human nature back to basics. No matter what kind of problems you face, love from within the family is the basis for solving all problems.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, the meaning of Iranian children's films</h1>
Regarding the proliferation of children's films in Iran, Mawson Mark malpav, director of "All Hell", has summarized two reasons:
First, there will be policy and financial support for the filming of children's films, and it will be easy to pass the review; second, in a country with a large number of children, children should be given more attention.
"All Kinds of Silence" (1998) Douban 7.8
Iran's film censorship is very harsh, so cautious and conservative children's theme films have become a veritable "sharp weapon for passing the examination", who will not be able to live with harmless children?
From the early 1980s to the late 1990s, a period of booming Children's Cinema in Iran, the 1997 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Little Shoes marked the peak of its influence.
"Little Shoes" (1997) Douban 9.2
Iranian children's filmmaking also formed relatively stable themes and styles in the future, among which Abbas and Majid Majidi contributed the most.
But to return to a realistic question: What is the significance of Iran making so many children's films for the mainland? We can't just show the world Iran's customs and social features.
There is a theory that the narrative motivation of Iranian children's films is the "search" of children.
"Little Shoes" is looking for repaired shoes; "Where Is My Friend's Home" is looking for a home at the same table; "White Balloon" is looking for the lost Tuman; "Castle of Dreams" is looking for the legendary Dream Castle.
"White Balloon" (1995) Douban 8.1
In the bitter sea of reality, children are the ideal boat of Iranian filmmakers, and children are the hope of Iran's future, but they face many tests. What children are looking for in the film is exactly what these filmmakers are looking for in reality, a better world, in Jameson's words: "They are eager for reform and social renewal, but they have not yet found the social forces that can bring it to fruition." The political dilemma leads to the aesthetic dilemma and the crisis of expression."
There is a sentence in Li Haipeng's "Buddha on The First Line": "We can't always be young, always full of tears, but still have nostalgia for a better world." ”
Nostalgia for a better world, this is probably the biggest meaning of Iranian children's films.
In a country where children can be sentenced to death, in a country where children are allowed to step on mines in war, the compensation that filmmakers can make is to create a perfect world for children in the film.
Because a perfect world must be a world that can make children happy.