A CHILD POET

Iran, 2004, 80 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Amir Quasem Razi.

A Child Poet focuses on a young boy and his relationship with his father. His father is ill and has to retire. The boy is literate and the father not. The film focuses on the boy and his activities, at school, at home, with the father, wondering about the death of his mother. The father and son clash because the father has not told him about the death of his mother. Eventually, the letter for their allowance comes through, they go shopping, but their bicycle is stolen. The young boy pursues the thief. The father gets some lessons in reading and writing and there is a future for father and son.

The film has echoes of the Italian film Bicycle Thieves. However, it is very much in the vein of so many Iranian films of the 1990s with their focus on young children.

1. The impact of the film? The focus on the boy, the father, their relationship? In the context of Iran and the need for growing literacy?

2. The city atmosphere, the homes, the streets, the schools, the shops and stalls? Musical score?

3. The title of the film, the focus on the boy, his love of learning, literature, poetic imagination? The poetry?

4. The father and son, the father not telling him of the death of his mother? The boy puzzling and grieved when he reads the letter about her death? The father and his illness, the effect on the boy? The need for applications, the book explaining application forms? The submission to the government? The boy handling all this, life at home, at school? The passing of time, the eventual receipt of the answer? The boy and his father getting the money, going shopping, his getting a suit, the other clothes? The bird? The bicycle stolen, his chasing the thief, catching him? The bonding with his father? The future relationship?

5. The father, his grief, unable to read, the letters? Relying on his son, getting the forms, the book on how to fill in the forms? At home, his growing illness, his wanting the allowance? It coming, their going shopping? The father and his learning to read and write?

6. The background to give the film authenticity, the neighbours, school, the shops? The range of activities in an ordinary day-to-day life?

7. The Iranians and their sensitivity towards the presentation of children on screen, relationships with parents?