Muristek
Tonight’s Homework review – Kiarostami-inspired snapshot of Iran’s wealth gap
Inequality is exposed in a series of interviews with schoolkids in a heartbreaking doc that echoes Abbas Kiarostami’s documentary Homework
A cheeky-faced boy of seven or eight is asked what he would wish for. “A big bike and a balloon that never bursts!” he replies with a huge grin, tickled with his answer. Another boy around the same age, more shabbily dressed and serious looking, is asked what life is about. He chews his bottom lip: “Life is something that is filled with difficulty.” This often heartbreaking, painful documentary from Ashkan Nejati and Mehran Nematollahi has a simple premise: interviewing Iranian schoolkids to camera about their lives, school, homework and hopes for the future.
It’s a sequel of sorts to godfather of modern Iranian cinema Abbas Kiarostami’s 1989 documentary Homework, which put the same questions to children growing up in the shadow of the Iran-Iraq war. The new film features plenty of kids-say-the-funniest-things moments. A boy is asked which countries he’d like to visit? “Europe, America … Neptune!” And there’s some commentary on the Iranian education system. But what lingers is the film’s devastating snapshot of the gap between rich and poor. One of the rich kids, a placid round-faced boy, brags about how well-off his dad is and how many cars they’ve got. The interviewer gently probes him: do you know what wealth is? “Yes, someone who has a lot of cash like my dad.” Do you know what poverty is? “No.”
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