The Experience [1973]

 Abbas Kiarostami’s gently observational feature-length debut The Experience – produced by the filmmaking department of ‘Centre for the Intellectual Development of Child and Adolescent’ (“Kanoon”) that he’d helped found – was informed by the neorealist form, Iran’s social realist milieu, and Kiarostami’s deep empathy for nonconformist kids and adolescents living in the margins, for a tender, impish and poetic subversion of the ‘poor boy falls for rich girl’ trope. Gorgeously photographed in richly composed B/W frames, with images often shot through glass panes which gave them a subtly voyeuristic quality, we follow a day and a half in the life of an impoverished teenager whose dreams add a sliver of hope and escapist joys into his tough Dickensian existence. The orphaned Mamad works as a lowly factotum in a photography studio – serving tea, brooming the floors, assisting with developing the negatives – where he also sleeps at night. Though constantly scolded by his middle-aged employer, more so when he indulges in acts of pubescent naughtiness by creating a cut-out from a signboard featuring an attractive model, he keeps getting drawn towards small acts of playfulness and rebellion. He’s also, in the meantime, become enamoured with a lovely girl slightly older to him; she’s far beyond his social station, but that doesn’t stop him from blushing at her sight, or day-dreaming about her, or crafting a little plan to get closer to her. He's therefore the quintessential Kiarostami kid who’ll indulge in bolder and more reckless displays of mischief and disobedience in the magnificent run of films that he’d make featuring young actors. This delicately-strung work, incidentally, was nearly devoid of any dialogues, which made it all the more affecting, meditative and impressionistic.

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Genre: Drama/Social Drama

Language: Persian

Country: Iran