O Ciclista

This film brilliantly depicts two aspects at the same time - plight of an Afghan refugee in Iran and a man's love for his partner. Set sometime in the 80's, this movie revolves around the life of an old man and his ailing wife. The cost of his wife's treatment compels the poor old man to accept a gruelling proposal from an Iranian circus owner to do something he had never done before and that too, for a continuous period of 7 days without any stoppages, whatsoever. Directed brilliantly by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, this movie is a 'must watch' because it makes you cry even without an explicit show of emotion being displayed on the screen. In these days where marriages fall apart at the drop of a hat, this movie reminds us that we are here for a greater cause.

A middle-aged Afghani man is alarmed when his wife falls very ill in Teheran. He has no money to pay the bill. He must look after his young son. To raise money to pay for his wife's care he undertakes an endurance contest. He attempts to ride a bicycle for 5 days without stopping.

He circles the same city square, surrounded by onlookers. This is a spectacle. He is a showman in a circus environment. The cyclist becomes the talk of the town. Will he make it? Bets are placed. Various gamblers try to sabotage his attempts, so they will win their bets. Various persons in the crowd cheer the cyclist on, making him their temporary hero.

Director Makhmalbaf has made a splendid film about an ordinary man, driven to desperate acts. Various scenes in the movie are elegantly shot. Performances are credible. This is one film where I really cared about what happened to the characters.

veloc

The Iranian movie Bicycleran was shown in the U.S. with the title The Cyclist (1987). It was written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. (Makhmalbaf is the director of the highly acclaimed film Kandahar. He is also the director who is impersonated by the protagonist in the Kiarostami movie Close-Up.)

Moharram Zaynalzadeh plays Nasim, an Afghani refugee in Iran. His wife is near death from illness, and Nasim--although he is intelligent and eager to work--cannot afford to pay for her medical care.

In Afghanistan, Nasim was a serious bicyclist who once was able to ride his bike continually for three days. Now, in order to obtain money, he agrees to ride the bike for seven days straight.

There are multiple sub-plots involving gamblers who are pro- or anti-Nasim, but I found that aspect of the movie very confusing. The problem is that the real plot is Nasim's suffering as he continues to cycle around and around the circle. However, you can't have a movie showing nothing but a man riding a bicycle, so director Makhmalbaf had to find something to show us other than that. What he shows us offers a glimpse of society in Iran, and a harsh look at the oppression of the Afghans that have fled there.

I thought the movie would be in black, white, and gray. Absolutely incorrect--the Iranian urban scenes (at least in 1987) were a riot of noise and color. The film is filled with activity, both at the cycling site and the city around the site.

We saw the film on DVD, where it worked very well. Any film will work better in a theater than on a small screen, but The Cyclist didn't suffer much by the transfer to DVD.

As I write this review, The Cyclist has an IMDb rating of 7.4, which is good. I thought it was even better than that, and gave it a 9. However, it's not a movie for everyone. I don't know what audience The Cyclist had in Iran, but in the U.S. this film is definitely for people who like unusual foreign movies with sub-titles. We love unusual foreign movies with sub-titles, so we thought it was great.

The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week.

What strikes me most about this film is not even the film itself, which has many good qualities. It is the world that is being filmed. With the Middle East constantly in the news, the region is a common focus of American movies. But seeing the people through the eyes of a director who lives there... it is a completely different experience.

One scholar has analyzed the film as an allegory which parallels the exploitation that Afghan refugees suffer from in Iran and from which they are unable to escape. I do not know enough to comment on this, though it is interesting to note that Mohsen Makhmalbaf, although Iranian, does seem to have a preoccupation with the Afghan people.

I watched this becouse Sabzian mentioned this film in Close up 1990.