The Experience

Abbas Kiarostami's 1973 Iranian film follows a boy working in a photography shop. Mamad cleans and runs errands from morning to night; he is drawn to the daughter of a well-off family he sees near the shop and looks for a way to approach her. The film does not build that attraction as a romantic line. The difference in class is clear from the start and the narrative does not delay the outcome; the real subject is the boy's daylong tiredness and the fact that no one pays him any attention. It is among Kiarostami's early works and runs about an hour. The cast is non-professional, the locations real and the dialogue sparse; the method he would develop in later films is already set here. Who it's for: those who follow Kiarostami and pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema. Who it's not for: viewers expecting plot; the film consists of the repetition of daily work.