| Iran, 2020 | Coming of Age/Drama | Low-key Mainstream | Trailer |
At this point, you will surely know about my attraction towards movies from Second World countries, and also the kind of affinity I feel towards Iranian culture in particular. Furthermore, after seeing the poster of this movie’s local advertising campaign and the high praise it denoted, I couldn’t but go watch it. Again, I was alone at the screening: who would want to see an Iranian movie a Tuesday evening? Me, apparently.
I couldn’t but tie knots between what I saw and a very Spanish fiction genre: picaresque (“picaresca”). As the name implies, it concerns stories about roguish but loveable teenagers surviving in a miserable ambiance: a setting that serves as a portrait and subtle critic towards their surrounding society. In Sun Children, we follow the daily life of Ali, a 12 year old survivor in Tehran’s poorest streets, and his three friends Abolfazl, an Afghan refugee whose sister Zahra is Ali’s love interest, Mamad, an easy-to-anger son of a drug addict, and Reza, a famililess boy with high dreams of becoming a football star. The four boys earn small money at a car dump, and are additionally asked by local mobsters for performing small heists, or transport merchandise. During one of these “jobs”, they are requested to find a treasure that is buried under a schoolyard. So, the consequent thing is for them to enter that school and subtly dig a tunnel during recess.
But this is when things become complicated. The school they enter is, incidentally, a school for abandoned children and kids of conflictive families, so they find themselves in an ambiance where they feel validated and encouraged to find a better tomorrow. From this point on, several conflicts and issues that happen in Iran’s lowest societal extract are put on the table. Child work, child crime, generalised misery, societal inequalities, the ruthlessness of justice agents and the bitter truth of being considered a burden, and also the lack of existing chances when you have nothing in life, are constantly discussed from several points of view. As a very painful metaphore, all of the characters that are in Ali’s life -his boss, the teachers that saw hope in him, the mobsters, even including his friends- end slowly disappearing from the movie when life decides to happen. People are alone in the end. Nobody looks for them, and are surely destined to finish their days alone too.
In the final moments, after everything disappears, Ali is still looking for the treasure, putting all his efforts into the tunnel. Hope is the only thing people have to keep forward. But, is it a reality- they can feel, or just another deception?
The actors are terrific, even considering their youth. The movie is quickly shot: something is happening all the time -corresponding to the youthfulness of the movie-, and if it’s not on screen it is masterfully hinted. The days of slow Iranian cinema are a matter of the past. The most important asset of the movie, the character net and its progressive characterization, is consequently achieved. I cared way more for these four boys I only saw for an hour an a half in my life than most of big heroes intended to become icons of today. Particularly, I have to mention the subtle tenderness of the portrayals. There is something like a small light, a sparkle of humanity, in all of them. It corresponds to the movie’s name, because they radiate.
Overall, it’s a really neat example of the power of cinema of conveying an interesting story (even if the setting may be not the most amusing one ever), whilst bluntly but not directly discussing how real world works. Which, incidentally, is what all big works of literature have done throughout history.