Review: Sweetly Kinetic And Full Of Life, ‘The Runner Delivers What We Want In A Movie
Iranian director Amir Nadiri Naderi's emancipation from confinement and adolescence of the coastal street child set the tone for many child-oriented Iranian classics, including Abbas Kiarostami's Where is a friend's house and many others. Globe, "Enfants du Ciel"). Today it is brought to vibrant and exciting life, re-released by Rialto, of which last year's revival of 'La Piscine' was a major one.
Baked in the sun, 'The Runner' follows Amiro (Madjid Niromand), a talented boy who lives alone on the upper deck of a wrecked boat, with a poetic sense of audacity and brilliance. Though he's illiterate to sell empty bottles, he still buys aviation magazines unless he's racing a bunch of guys, riding his bike, or watching a plane take off over a fence. - Images provide many materials for dreams of escapism. Seeing the many freighters floating on the misty horizon, he shouts emphatically for attention from shore, as if unaware of the power of being useless. So close again!
In fact, Amiro is a survivor who tricks you into believing that liberation through movement - running on the beach, chasing a train - is very much possible. But the film about him is directed by Besal Amiro, and Naderi is wise with a bold brush: 'The Runner' is really gentle, full of life, poetic at times, but also, paradoxically, emotionless. Naderi respects the tenacity and intelligence of these children, but there is a great distance between Amiro's life and the one that takes him to unknown places on two levels. (Nirumand, meanwhile, now lives in Southern California and works in education, and guest starred with Nadiri in the reboot. He may not be acting again, but his childhood fame lives on.)
The runner doesn't feel artificial, the artist moves in time with deeply textured cinematography by Firuz Malekzadeh and flawless editing by Bahram Beyzai. But you can see why, with the blatant honesty, lack of professionalism and social awkwardness of Runner's World in Italian neorealism, combined with the self-expression of the French New Wave. Color in a spectrum that includes Buster Keaton, Vittorio De Sica and François Truffaut.
Similarly, in a haunting and haunting scene typically living in poverty, Iranian filmmakers can avoid the political analysis that accompanies adult drama as they portray the pain, chills and complexities of life. After all, sometimes a kid can be a unique blend of a pure patriot who uses everything he knows and knows there's a lot he doesn't know. The greatest Iranian directors knew how fruitful this would be for human vision and released some of the best films of the last 40 years.
I'd even argue that Naderi's dynamic and lyrical memoir has one of cinema's greatest action sequences - not usually associated with Iranian films - but he's not your typical idol. The Amiro event has the ice cube needed to sell ice water from a bucket. But, when two men try to steal it, our adrenaline-pumped, sure-footed hero embarks on a chase for miles on end while clinging to a dwindling source of income, but an unlimited, self-generated sense of speed. He stops to mock the bully in a funny way.
Amiro keeps running when there is no one behind him. What he does may seem silly, but it surprisingly resonates with his son's ideals of fulfillment and happiness. This is the essence of cinematic action: the pain and thrill of travel, the rush, isn't that life? Forget it: Don't we want them to be movies ?
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
