Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Rating: ★★★★★

What might unfold if we carried the gentle persistence of a child, whose simple act of responsibility grows beyond himself?

It’s funny how one thing often leads to another. I had just been reading about Danish schools, where children between the ages of six and sixteen spend one hour each week in an empathy class. An hour of empathy is treated as essential as English or mathematics. Not long after, I came across this beautiful film, made in Iran decades ago, that seems to be teaching the very same lesson, not in theory, but in lived, embodied practice. Here’s to my son Luccas, whose thoughtful recommendations always seem to arrive at just the right moment.

Why do we shy from the modest acts kindness asks of us? Kiarostami’s film, with its soft insistence, shows that care, even in its humblest form, can loosen the hold of indifference. A child’s resolve, steadfast yet unassuming, becomes a mirror for our own hesitant steps toward compassion.

This is no mere story; it’s an ethical invitation. Kiarostami traces a path through Iranian village life, wind-swept hills, weathered doors, leaving room for uncertainty, resisting tidy resolutions. He asks us to pause, to weigh our responsibilities beyond the screen. The film’s particularity, rooted in its place and time, carries truths that echo universally: conscience whispers where rules demand.

Though made in 1987, the film’s questions pulse with life today. In a world heavy with crises too vast for one to bear, a child’s clarity cuts through, reminding us what we, distracted or rigid, often miss. Compassion begins with a single gesture, a notebook carried, a path retraced. Here lies the quiet brilliance of this cinema: it slows us. In an age of fleeting, packaged tales, it invites us to dwell, to co-create meaning. It does not shout; it murmurs. It murmurs that integrity lives in the smallest choices, that children may guide where adults falter, that empathy is not a place we arrive but a trail we walk, one step, one gesture, one winding path at a time.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia