In Abbas Kiraostami's acclaimed pseudo documentary, an unnamed director (Ferhad Khermanend, playing an alter ego of Kiarostami) and his young son to return to Koker, the setting of his great film "Where is the Friends Home", in the wake of the devastating 1990 earthquake that hit northern Iran. The movie is ostensibly about the search for the two boys who starred in the earlier film but it turns into a kind of fictional documentary about the strength of the human spirit in the face of disaster. the camera simply watching out the car window for much of the film, taking in the landscape, the ruins of mud houses, and the streams of homeless people hauling food and equipment to makeshift shelters. The villagers are fatalistic, believing that the earthquake was God's will, but the rebirth of the human spirit is symbolized by the fact that most people seem interested in watching the Italia 90 World Cup matches, despite their terrible tragedy they have gone through (many have lost their homes and family members). In a director with less sensibility, a movie like this would seem the shameless exploitation of a tragedy. The movie is not quite entertaining but it is compelling. The filming of this movie would itself be fictionalized by Kiarostami in Through the Olive Trees.
Review of And Life Goes On
