Film Summary DXCIV (The Runner)

Having a movie survive on the singular talents of one actor is a big gamble.
It's an even bigger gamble when that's a child actor.

Madjid Niroumand plays the scruffy and determined Amiro. A small child living on his own with no family no friends* and Incredibly limiting prospects.
He works a bunch of Oddball jobs collecting semi useful material out of garbage heaps, to collecting bottles out of the shore, selling ice water around the dock and finally being able to polish shoes for a living.
All of these are the lowest of the low jobs and each one gets Amiro couple of rial's closer to comprehending his dream. Not realising his dream, it's pretty well implying that he may never get to that stage.

Unfortunately there isn't much of a future for this kid or indeed any of the other local street kids running around.
They can't understand the word of magazines they acquire, most of which seems to be an Italian or French.
They can't even read their own local language (Farsi). So they're kind of stuck doing labour jobs for scraps of money. When they're not doing any of that, they are usually screwing around playing football or chasing after trains.
Sometimes competing in races where they try to beat each other to a specific goal. Like a can Fanta or (at the end of the film) a big block of ice in this exhaustively hot field surrounded by pipes of burning crude oil that you see around ventilation plants all the time.

And the whole thing comes off sounding incredibly negative. But my God if you're not rooting for this kid the entire time. There's this tiny little glimmer of hope that maybe just something will turn out well for this kid. Did it first he's able to acquire enough money to eat then enough money to just buy a book and finally has the ability to attend a basic language class so we can finally learn how to read and write. There's this whole thing revolving around the reading lesson Marie has to say the entire alphabet in this long chanting sequence. Along with a bunch of other people.
There's a scene before he tries attending school where he's a ripping a book to shreds complaining that he just and read, that he should already be able to given his age.
And that whole park really hit home for me, as somebody who can barely write to this day and still has problems comprehending a language that I was born into.
It's a stressful experience. Watching this kid gradually get over it is just a little comforting.

And the whole thing comes off sounding incredibly negative. But my God if you're not rooting for this kid the entire time.
There's this tiny little glimmer of hope that maybe just something will turn out well for this kid.
At first he's able to acquire enough money to eat, then enough money to just buy a book and finally has the ability to attend a basic language class. So he can finally learn how to read and write.
There's this whole thing revolving around the reading lesson where he has to say the entire alphabet in this long chanting sequence. Along with a bunch of other people.
In a lot of ways this film is done like a sporting movie. Were you see the strappy up start against the world get better and better at achieving their goals via the power of montages and general training. Only here there is no real goal.
It's just a kid trying to live his life, hopefully get to a better place.
He also has a fascination with planes.
It's kind of implied that he'd like to be a pilot but I think he'd be more happy just being able to work on the plane let alone fly the darn thing.
Honestly it's all just a big set up for escapism. Anything they can get this kid away from his musically downtrodden life.

It's a surprisingly good film for a movie that's mainly child acting with an armless story. Everything's really basic and it's not all that happy. But it works out just enough that you can kind of appreciate the hardships of this poor kids life.
Also the general camera work is really good. There are a lot of really fun interesting shot. Somebody knew there camera techniques when sitting up.

*I say there is friends. One moment they're hanging around with him having a good time playing sports or doing whatever it is kids do. The next moment they're trying to steal his work supplies or destroy a block of ice he tried to purchase earlier in the day.
They all gang up on him at one point, trying to beat the crap out of them because he grabbed a bottle and some other kid claimed was he is.