DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER APPLE?

Iran, 2006, 90 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Bayram Fazli.

Have You Another Apple is an enigmatic title for a complex Iranian film. It is a rather different Iranian film. This was the intention of the writer-director, previous director of photography who serves in this role for his own film.

The introduction to the film highlights that it is in a timeless and indeterminable place, a blend of the past and the present, tribal warriors. The film indicates that the Dasdaran, the Sickle- Bearers, are controlling the countryside, ranging around and attacking villages, demanding taxes and produce.

It is an elaborate fable, filmed in north-western Iran in the area occupied by Kurds and Turks. It is a story of an occupied people, people who suffered from war. The rulers are called the Wielders of the Sickles. They ride horses. They also ride motorbikes. To this extent, the film could be set anywhere in desert countries and at any time. It is an allegory for oppressed people.

The hero of the film is considered a lazy man, whipped by his mother. However, he has an ability to run – although he is always hungry. The film then focuses on a number of people being buried alive, the possibility that they will be beheaded if a young man does not arrive before sunset, the challenge of running from one encampment to the village. He encounters these oppressed people, many who are simply asleep to escape the Sickle Wielders, others who spend all their time begging, others who are continually fighting. The tyrants are able to oppress them. He is drawn into their plight, continually trying to help, escaping from the Sickle Wielders.

The film then goes back in time to show the background of the young man, his teaming up with a woman, a refugee from the ravages of a war-torn village. In their travels, they come across very different villages where people behave in different manners, some violent, some ignoring the realities of the war, all then becoming targets of the Sickle-Bearers?. Eventually he is put to the test, especially with the woman that he has been attracted to, the old men of a village and the children who are all being buried to their necks – and can be freed only if he runs from one place to the other and frees them. The film then moves to the challenge to the young man, his ability to exercise his strength, to defeat the enemy – and the challenge of running all day in order to save the buried people.

The film is visually striking, the story challenging, the philosophical issues underlying the film worth reflecting on. A different kind of film from Iran.

1. Interest in the film? For Iranian audiences? For worldwide audiences? The film as a fable? An allegory? References to contemporary Iran and the Middle East?

2. The structure of the film: the information about the sickle-wielders as rulers, despots, cruel? The children being buried in the sand, the old people? The leader, his comments, the woman and their waiting for their rescuer at sunset? The flashbacks, the establishing of the characters, the situations, the treatment by the sickle-wielders? The final running of the hero, the rescue?

3. The locations, the desert, the villages, the artificial style, the barrenness? The landscapes and the horse-riding, the motorcycle-riding? The sunrise, the sunsets? The musical score?

4. The sickle-wielders, their appearance, their cruelty, harassing the villages, the villagers pretending to be asleep, being spared? Their ruthlessness with the bald man? With the women and children? Their massacring the group who fled into the desert? The leader, the men and their being tricked by the hero? The man on the motorcycle, the confrontation with the hero? The finale, the leader and his word, establishing the hero as the official leader of the group? For cultivating the land, for not paying so much tribute?

5. The hero, his being chased by his mother, being whipped, his father shooting? Their abandoning him? His struggle through the countryside, coming to the village where everyone was sleeping, his hunger, prodding them, pretending to be asleep with the sickle-wielders? His betraying himself with the girl and the old man? Their being taken prisoner? His running away, escaping through the village? His continued activities? His perpetually wanting to eat? In the village where everybody was fighting one another, his shooting, the food, his being acclaimed as hero? Arrested again? His meeting up with the woman? With the old people and the children? Going through the desert, taking the motorbike? The difficulty with the hostages and the guns? The final escape – yet captured again, the leader and his letting the woman and the children go? His having roused the old men to defend the village? His final running all day in order to save the people?

6. The woman, in the village with the sleepers, her anger at the hero? Not meeting him again? Saving the children? Relying on him to save the day?

7. The sleeping people, an image of the populations? The group fighting each other? The allegory for people, revolution, ruling and despots?

8. The colourful nature of the film, as a fable, as a political allegory? On the behaviour of human nature?