Where Is the Friend's House?

Babak Ahmadpour

Abbas Kiarostami's Where is the Friend's House, from 1987, was his eighth feature and the first to attract widespread acclaim in the West. This was the first of three of his films set in the village of Koker which is located in northern Iran near the Caspian Sea. It follows the travails of a small boy, Ahmad (Babak Ahmadpour) struggling to return a lost note book to a classmate, Reza, in a neighboring village. That classmate has been berated in class for previously misplacing his notebook and is facing expulsion. The teacher's browbeating and humiliation of Reza in class motivates Ahmad to support his hapless chum with a single minded devotion along his circuitous route.

The picture, at times, bogs down. There are a few too many shots of Ahmad racing through the hinterlands. In addition, any time his non-professional grownups share their harumphs, the effect is soporific. However, Kiarostami's camera placement, often displaying four grounds of view, never wavers and tells us more about Iran and its flora and fauna than his adult characters ever could. A striking and heartfelt film that unspools in 83 minutes.