The Traveler

BrandonHabes5.0

I'm a straight up sucker for neorealism done right, and THE TRAVELER is a pitch-perfect, melancholic take on the genre that delivers a wallop to the gut before abruptly cutting to black. Kiarostami nails the pathos of this thing. It was like watching BICYCLE THIEVES (1948) for the first time all over again. More youthful energy, but just as tragic and impactful. I LOVE sad endings 😈. We spend 83min rooting for a mischievous, scheming child, who'd rather play soccer all day than do homework, but we love the kid because of how pure his love for the game is. He's a truant, thieving little devil like Antoine from Truffaut's 400 BLOWS (1959), but Kiarostami's sympathy allows us to see him as this little human dude alienated from adult society, filled with all the same worries and emotional complexities of adulthood. We want him to make enough money to see his favorite soccer team play in Tehran, and the closer he gets to his goal, the more ominous his journey feels. Such a simplistic story told with mountains of emotion. The final shot borders onto something spiritually ruinous, like a rite of passage that signals a transition from childhood to adulthood, and all the guilt, pain, and disappointment that process demands. Haunting to the bone. 83min of perfection.Kiarostami Ranked

Thorkell August Ottarsson4.0

In Close-up Hossain Sabzian says that he is the child from from "The Traveler" who is left behind. Here he is referring to Abbas Kiarostami's first feature film which is included as an extra on the Criterion Close-up Blu Ray disk. There are two boys in the film. One is Qassem, who loves football. In fact he loves it so much that he does not do anything else. He even lies and steals and cheats his best friends and family to quench his passion. Qassem is in other words not a great role model. He has a friend who is more kindhearted but helps Qassem none the less to steal money to go to the big city to watch a football game. Qassem does not really care for his friend. He only uses him to get what he wants. It is Qassem's friend who is left behind. Sabzian feels like he is on the supporting line while others get the breaks in life. It is interesting that Sabzian sees himself in the friend since he was himself much more like Qassem. So obsesses with cinema that he sacrificed his family, marriage and his job for it.The Traveler is about passion that is so strong that it robes people of all values. It is also about social structure and growing up. Realising that actions have consequences. In many ways this is the Iranian version of The 400 Blows. Powerful debut from master Kiarostami. This film alone is reason enough to buy the Close-up Blu Ray disk.

Jim Film5.0

Perfectly crafted, subtle masterpiece that I'll be thinking about for a long time.Kiarostami proves he truly understands the human soul more than most people ever will.He makes the most human stories I've ever seen, He understands children, Art and the cinematic language (in my opinion) better than any other director. I feel like he inspired future coming of age directors such as Japans Hirokazu Kore-eda or Belgium's Lukas Dhont.The simplicity is the films strength there is no high tension drama instead the hopes and dreams are built upon by the Neo realistic approach controversially inspired by German expressionisms silent stint in the 1920s. More is said with faces then with tongues and it allows the veritable to speak of its own accord.