Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1974 • Iran
Starring Hassan Darabi, Pare Gol Atashjameh
Abbas Kiarostami’s first feature focuses on a boy in a provincial city so avid to get to Tehran to see a soccer match that he’ll lie to adults and cheat other kids. A quest film that’s also a study of youthful obsession, it’s filmed in edgy black and white with a quiet energy that matches its hero’s. THE TRAVELER has an acridly ironic ending and one of the best performances by a child in Kiarostami’s early work.
Up Next in Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
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So Can I
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1975 • Iran
The first of Abbas Kiarostami’s films made for, rather than about, children was an experiment in combining live action and animation, done in collaboration with animator Nafiseh Riahi. As two schoolboys watch animated views of animals’ actions—kangaroos...
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Two Solutions for One Problem
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1975 • Iran
This simple moral tale seems to prefigure WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE? Two young schoolboys, Dara and Nader, are friends until Dara returns Nader’s notebook torn and Nader retaliates in kind, setting off an escalating battle that leads to destruction of...
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A Wedding Suit
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 1976 • Iran
Starring Mohammad Fassih, Mehdi Nekoueï, Massoud ZandIn a trilevel shopping arcade, a teenage boy who works for a tailor is besieged by two other boys who want to borrow a new suit to wear on a social outing before it’s turned over to its owner. One of...
