Review of Blackboards (2000) by Pj P — 21 Nov 2011

The beautiful and talented (sorry but it's true) Iranian director Samira Makhmalbef directed her first movie 'The Apple' when she was 17 (she had already directed two video productions) and when she was 23 made the extraordinary and inspirational Afghanistan-set 'At Five in the Afternoon'. If you haven't seen them, do so.

'Blackboards' was made when she was 19 and is something else again. Its setting is after the chemical bombing of Halabjaby by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (do you remember when we use to call this 'the Gulf War'?) and shows a group of Kurdish refugees - the script is entirely in Kurdish. It focuses on one of a group of young teachers. Each of these young men has only one possession, an old-fashioned blackboard carried on his back.

One of the teachers finds various uses for his blackboard - as a stretcher, and as dowry - he has nothing else. Another falls in with a group of young boys who make their living out of smuggling - no need for education here then. This is one of the most striking movies that I have ever seen. Almost entirely devoid of optimism, eyeball-searingly bleak, it defies classification and intelligible synopsis, or perhaps I mean, by me anyhow.