Once upon a time, when stories were not written and deals were made in terms of walnuts, two teachers, Reeboir and Said, journeyed across the bronze and buff lands between Iran and Iraq. With cumbersome blackboards strapped to their shoulders, Reeboir and Said set out through dust and danger to conquer a wilderness of ignorance. Reeboir went down the slopes of golden lion dust while Said climbed up to the village nestled in the crags.
Samira Makhmalbaf’s Blackboards (2000), a Special Jury Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival, deserves all the rich plaudits that it has received. Released before the wars that ravaged Iraq, this film is almost a fable – where, why, how and when all dissolve into the burnt ochre of a lonely, broken land and the people who must cross the border between one country and another.
The story begins and ends on probably the last of a grim three-day journey for a troupe (mostly) of old men who have to trudge across a forbidden space to reach the homeland in which they wish to die. Said’s offer to educate them falls on deaf ears, but they will give him 40 walnuts if he can lead them to their destination. On the same day, as part of a regular ante, a party of young boys (“human mules”) carrying contraband are heading to deliver their burden to their masters. With their survival in danger of gunfire, the boys find it redundant – vaguely ridiculous even – to see how reading, writing and multiplication tables could ever bring meaning to life.
Not that blackboards cannot be used for other purposes. A deserted young wife whose anxious father wants her to be re-married asks Said to wed her and makes good use of his blackboard for the ceremony. Reeboir finds his young namesake, who chortles in delight after painstakingly writing his name on the blackboard he is carrying. Makhmalbaf’s fable has its lighter moments, but all revolve around the relevance of its title.
Eventually, the blackboards meant to communicate the meanings of words and numbers are employed to take shelter from a hail of bullets that shatter the rocks nearby, to create a splint for an injured leg after an accident, and finally, as stretcher for the infirm.
The sources of the violence and terror are only heard, but the fear and tension find a poignant metaphor. An elderly father, struggling to urinate for three days, finally cannot stop himself when bullets land close to him.
“I chose all these characters because of the geography of their faces,” Makhmalbaf has said. Indeed, the film has the most unforgettable faces – whether it is the boy who repeats the story of killing a rabbit or the old man who tosses hay and hopes someone will read him the letter his son has sent from prison.
In possibly the most representational moment, Said hawks out to a sullen, silent village in the manner of a vegetable seller that he has come to offer education and it will not cost much. He is dismissed by all. Undaunted, he journeys on in search of pupils wherever he may find them.
How idealistic should a teacher be? What kind of education is needed in order for it to be relevant? Can education ever substitute experience? Blackboards makes no attempt to answer questions as much as it chooses to pose them.
For previous entries in this series, see here, here and here.
