Safar / The Journey (2024 restoration MK2 Films / Kanoon)

Bahram Beyzaie: / سفر / Safar / The Journey (IR 1972).

/ سفر /

    IR 1972. Prod.: Kanoon – Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. 

    Director: Bahram Beyzaie. Scen,. M.: Bahram Beyzaie. F.: Mehrdad Fakhimi – b&w. Int.: Sirus Hassanpour (Ta’leh), Abbas Dastranj (Razi), Parvaneh Massoumi (woman/ mother), Khanshahri (man/father), Jamshid Layegh (the man on the stairs), Siamak Atlasi (Jahel).

    35 min

    Not released in Finland.

    DCP from MK2 Films.

    Courtesy of Kanoon. Restored in 4K in 2024 by Mk2 in collaboration with DreamLab Films at Roashana laboratory, from the original 35 mm negatives.

    In Farsi with English subtitles

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Cinemalibero.

    Introduced by Vladimir Durán ed Ehsan Khoshbakht

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly with e-subtitles in Italian, 24 June 2025.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025): "A 12-year-old orphan with a habit of seeking out his potential parents takes his friend along on a journey through the wastelands on the outskirts of Tehran." 

"Seemingly a children’s folk tale, Safar is so visually singular that it evades easy breakdown."

"It is allegorical, but allegory is the engine; visual density the result."

"When one speaks of Bahram Beyzaie, one speaks of a maze of citations. While along the way, various forms of image-making are evoked – movie posters, peep show, photography – the search for parents becomes a search for the primal image from which the film has emerged: steps for Eisenstein, architecture for Murnau, a crippled man for Buñuel, wheels for John Ford."

"An agonizing dream bordering on a nightmare, the film overflows with excess. Objects and people multiply rapidly, growing like mushrooms in a landscape so devastated by dirt and pollution that it becomes an environmental plea."

"In the smoggy, hazardous zones of abandoned objects – old wooden doors, carriages – a country has discarded its history at a frantic pace without replacing it with anything new." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025)

AA: In the introduction, in which Cecilia Cenciarelli hosted Vladimir Durán and Ehsan Khoshbakht, we were guided to the cryptic and enigmatic world of Safar, a film with a "Kanoon quest narrative", featuring a 12-year old boy in a shantytown around Tehran.

Indeed, the first image is of a boy running up a stairway. A key image familiar from A Simple Event (Sohrab Shahid Saless, IR 1973) and Where Is the Friend's Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, IR 1987).

In 2019 I edited a book whose name translates into English as "Film and Psyche 5: A Child In a Strange World" with a chapter on Iranian cinema. This year in Bologna we can follow the retrospective of Luigi Comencini, arguably the best director on the subject of childhood. Iran might be the best country on that subject.

The enigmatic quality of the movie is a way of conveying a child's perspective to the incomprehensible world of grown-ups.

Taleh is an orphan who hopes to find his parents. His friend Razi hopes to find a better life with them. 

They are poor, they have nothing. But like in classics of neorealism, they are rich, they have everything, since they are full of life. Like in the song from Hair elevated by Nina Simone as "Ain't Got No, I Got Life". Taleh claims that he has the address of his parents on a piece of paper.

The address is far away. The road is full of detours. As pickpockets they distract a victim by pointing to the rooftop. The possessions of a legless man are moved away. There is a construction site and an area covered by stones. The road leads to junkyards of abandoned cars and horse carriages. It seems that the evicted man is being deposited there. It's a shantytown complete with a cinema called Bio Detour. The fantasy glamour of the film posters is a counter-image to the surrounding squalor. It's siesta time. Everybody is sleeping (Kaikki väki nukkuu). The boys are bullied by a roughneck pedophile and Razi's hair is razed. Hungry? Just ignore it. ("The trick is I don't mind that it hurts", said Lawrence of Arabia). A candle is lit. A fire breaks out. There is smoke like a sandstorm. A little girl is crying. A boy runs with a kite. An image of transcendence. Taleh and Razi snatch the kite but give it back. 

A passer-by states that the address is not far away. It is indeed found, and there is a couple whose son is missing. But their ages don't match. The search will go on tomorrow.

The music is unusual and haunting.  I could not find a composer credit. For Ragbar, the composer was Shida Garachedaghi / Sheyda Gharachedaghi, who also composed Mohammad Reza Aslani's Chess of the Wind. The scores of The Stranger and the Fog and Safar are of a similar inspiration.

I look forward to revisiting Safar for an even more rewarding experience. I don't expect to solve the mystery. The journey is the destination.