A PIECE OF BREAD
Iran, 2004, 100 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Kamal Tabrizi.
A Piece of Bread is a film that blends ordinary life in contemporary Iran with mystical traditions. It focuses for the first half hour on the detail of contemporary life in a village ranging from goatherds to girls going to school to the unemployed, to cafes with phones and computer games.
However, a lone figure is seen on a hill and it emerges that he is a soldier going to report for duty (even when the military is despised by the people). He encounters a number of people on their way to a pilgrimage shrine. He is a simple man, a kind of idiot savant, with whom people interact and have to explore their own feelings and understandings. As he journeys, he passes a mythical mill, is given a ride on a cart and eventually arrives on foot at the shrine. One of the wise women at the shrine quotes the Mary verses of the Koran – and the reference to the young man in the pattern of Mary, wonderful things happening to her by virtue of the spirit, are seen as parallels and miracles occur.
Kamal Tabrizi has made a range of films including the beautiful Carpet of the Wind as well as the humorously satirical, The Lizard.
1. A portrait of contemporary Iran, Islam and its traditions, the place of faith and religion, customs and legends, pilgrimages? The universal meaning?
2. The specifically religious dimensions, especially with pilgrimage and shrine? The universal spiritual dimensions in a road film, a pilgrimage film?
3. The landscapes, the countryside, the details of the roads, the village, the shrine? The emotional musical score?
4. The goatherd, the goats and the traditions of the countryside, the vehicles, the phones, computer games – the modern world?
5. One day in this countryside: the opening with the goatherd, seeing the unemployed rushing for the minibus, the girl going to school, eating the bread, the bar, the proprietor with the phone, his vehicles, the computer games…?
6. The lone figure on the hill, his back to the camera, suggestion of mysticism, his presence? The mill and its non-existence in reality, the memories of the past? Suggesting the spiritual dimension?
7. The military, the reputation, the soldiers, their talk, the town and the destination of the barracks?
8. The goatherds, the old men, the drivers of the cars, the old man on the cart? The range of people encountered by the soldier?
9. The young soldier, his appearance, innocent, naïve, signing the shroud – and the mythology about shrouds and signatures? The old man and his stopping the soldier signing? His reticence, the conversation with the old man, with the driver of the cart? His character, simplicity, interactions with people?
10. The old man, in himself, the story of the mill, the ride, with the soldier, the life, his making arrangements, his coming to an understanding?
11. The soldier, walking, at the crossroads, his fall, guidance, arrival? His shoes? His powers? His presence – of the spirit, an angel?
12. The pilgrims, their clamour? The wise woman, her reading the Mary verses of the Koran, the annunciation to Mary, the visitation, the grace of the spirit, the application to the young man?
13. The theme of the presence of the spiritual and the possibility of transformation and miracles of ordinary life?
