The Runner

Madjid Niroumand

Amir Naderi's The Runner, from 1984. is an arresting example of neo-realism. Madjid Niroumand plays Amiro, an orphan eking out an existence on the bottom rung of Iranian society in the port city of Abadan. Amiro and his comrades earn a pittance collecting bottles that wash up on the shore of a local Persian Gulf beach. Home is the rusty deck of an abandoned freighter. Despite their precarious existence, Amiro and his companions retain a sense of youthful frivolity and playfulness. Amiro has pluck and energy, hence the title, and he is able to parlay those attributes into some forward social mobility. Eventually, he earns more money shining shoes and enrolls in school to learn to read. He watches the huge tankers at the port and the planes at the local airport, yearning for an escape that is not available to him. Naderi's direction never falls prey to mawkishness or sententiousness. The camera never lingers too long, the point is made and we move on. A good example of this is the brief shot of a one legged young man. Amiro register shock, but this brief moment is the film's only allusion to the Iran Iraq War, then at its height. Niroumand's performance is one of the most remarkable by a child in the 20th century.