Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.
Kiarostami's debut feature in his celebrated Koker trilogy is a quietly profound humanist gem. The plot is deliberately minimal — a child's urgent errand — but its simplicity is its strength, rendering universal themes of empathy and moral responsibility with rare purity. Acting from the non-professional child leads is natural and unaffected, though not technically exceptional. Cinematography is genuinely outstanding: Kiarostami's compositions of the winding zigzag path up the hillside are iconic, and his observational camera captures rural Iranian life with a painterly, unhurried gaze that feels wholly earned. Novelty is very high — the film is unmistakably Kiarostami, blending documentary texture with gentle narrative in a way that influenced world cinema deeply; its slow, child-eyed sincerity is singular. The ending is tender and satisfying but somewhat quietly understated rather than revelatory, landing as a modest grace note rather than a knockout conclusion.