2000 · drama

Blackboards

Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf · 1h 25m · 2000

Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

Our read: Blackboards (2000) reads as a sombre, slow-burn, grounded drama entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature.