Original subtitles

INSTITUTE FOR THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH

CINEMA AND THEATER DEPARTMENT

FIRST CASE, SECOND CASE

Take four.

The two back rows,

either you say who did it,

or you're all suspended for the rest of the week.

Your child is one of these students.

What do you expect of him?

Should he denounce the troublemaker to the teacher

and sit back down?

Or say nothing and resist until the end of the week?

Shall I reply?

It's hard to be categorical.

It's filming, I'll reply?

Yes, go ahead.

My son did the right thing.

You learn solidarity from childhood.

So in adulthood,

if you have to fight, you're more resistant.

Of course he could have denounced his classmate

by a desire to please the teacher.

But it's a sure thing that later on

he'd become a bootlicker, a brownnose,

a yes-man.

His silence, his resistance, missing a week of class,

make him stronger.

Which doesn't stop him, in private, encouraging his friend

to behave in class

and listen to the teacher.

And then...

to respect class rules.

But denouncing is unworthy.

Sorry?

They did wrong.

They have to work.

What can they do in the corridor? Nothing.

We went to all this trouble so he could study,

not to do these things.

That's all. He must go back to work.

I agree he should show solidarity.

That he doesn't go back.

I'll remind him

how important the solidarity with the classmate is.

Denouncing whoever did it

would mean destroying this solidarity.

From what I've seen, it's probably the last one.

The one in front of Mohammad Reza.

It wasn't Mohammad Reza.

One of them drummed under the table.

The teacher didn't know who.

He expelled the last two rows, including your son.

Your son knows who it was. What do you expect of him?

I must say, my son

isn't a bad boy.

He's not the kind to cheat or misbehave.

My son is serious.

He works very well, even better than his older brother.

So, there, I don't know.

Maybe the others tricked him. Maybe not.

I don't know.

I'll explain.

It wasn't Mohammad Reza, but somebody else.

The teacher didn't know who it was so he flung all seven out.

Mohammad Reza knows who it was.

Do you think he should denounce him and return to class,

or spend the week in the corridor?

I think these kids were making a racket

and drumming under the table

and said it was Barati.

But my son would never do that.

That's my opinion.

I struggle to make a living and feed him

so he goes to school.

So he can't do that.

I'd never allow it.

So he should give his name?

What name? I need to give my name?

No, him, he should denounce whoever did it?

Yes, denounce

whoever misbehaved, made a noise.

And go back to class.

Shall I begin?

I think

the student who...

caused the trouble in class should be denounced

by those who know who it is.

They shouldn't miss a week of class.

The father and the teacher make an effort

so the students study,

benefit from school.

Refusing to denounce

the one who disturbs the class,

is wrongfully depriving yourself of a week's learning.

They should have no hesitation in denouncing

the troublemaker.

I expect my son

to collaborate with the teacher

by denouncing the unruly student who created the disorder.

Saturday.

Sunday.

Monday.

Please sir.

It was Mohammad Reza Nemati.

In your opinion, did this student do the right thing?

Please justify briefly

your answer.

I must say

that if we accord any value to this gesture of solidarity

naturally, the breaking of this solidarity

is regrettable.

This student doesn't respect this solidarity as such,

regardless of the reasons and circumstances that provoked it.

The group united and one of them broke the union.

A regrettable action.

Of course this student did not behave well.

But the person who incited this inappropriate reaction

is the teacher.

The child's personality

was crushed.

This regrettable act is caused by the teacher, not the student.

The main culprit is the teacher.

I don't blame the one who did it,

but the one who caused it.

A wrongdoing was committed, undoubtedly.

But not by the child.

Above all by the teacher,

by asking him to spy,

making a spy of him.

And also by the parents who didn't raise him in such a way

as to know the right attitude to adopt in this situation,

and not give in to the ignominy,

the corruption he was incited to participate in.

So I don't consider the child at fault,

but the environmental parameters.

Which is deplorable.

This child's conscience awoke.

When it became clear to him

that he had wrongfully violated another's liberty, he went back in.

I admire his courage.

Although he is isolated,

once he knows he's right,

he goes for it.

The others will end up following him.

In my opinion, he behaved badly.

But you must ask yourself what upbringing he has had,

what has happened in his life for him to act like this.

It's easy to imagine the future of a child who behaves like this

and the kind of person he'll become.

This student, who couldn't resist,

thinks he did the right thing.

But in principle,

it's up to the teacher not to create

a situation that gives rise to such behavior.

Nonetheless, we have to admit that individuals' resistance varies.

Of course he was wrong.

I consider

that education is not only in this setting.

You can't justify his action

by returning to class to study.

Because education is in the corridor too.

I utterly condemn what he did.

He harmed the collective.

The course didn't suit them,

they acted collectively and this person betrayed them.

They should beat him up so he doesn't do it again.

This adolescent's attitude after his return

shows considerable agitation.

He seems anguished.

Maybe he has a bad conscience.

He went against his age group,

against the value system of his group.

I therefore disapprove of what he did.

He himself acted against his own deepest desires.

We see the symptoms of this

when he's in class.

It's obviously his bad conscience making him fidget.

In any case, he's suffering.

He risks being rejected by the group

he abandoned.

The student himself gave the answer

in the shame he felt.

In my opinion, his action is just.

He realized he'd made a mistake.

He knew the truth and didn't tell it.

After two days,

his inner turmoil,

his inner conflict

pushed him to do it,

quite rightly.

What interests me

is this teacher who imposes a collective punishment.

Although nothing is happening in class

and he's just drawing.

The students are bored

and the teacher can't manage to include them.

Concerning the student we saw

come and denounce his classmate,

once again, I hold the teacher responsible.

Through his punishment he incited one of them

to become an informer.

In human and religious terms, denunciation is a fault.

In my opinion, this student was wrong to act like this.

He cut himself off from the group, while humans live collectively.

He may have sat down,

but he will have a bad conscience

for the rest of the school year

or even longer.

In my opinion, yes.

As the subject of the solidarity is illicit,

the solidarity loses

its noble value.

It becomes a counter value.

So,

while resisting injustice

has a value as resistance,

resistance in the face of justice becomes a counter value,

as resistance.

Resisting a crime

has value.

But if the same resistance opposes preventing the crime,

it's a counter value.

In the present case, the student's action is just.

He is defending his right.

His right and the one of the society that feeds this individual

and looks after him.

This boy defended society

by denouncing this individual

who doesn't deserve solidarity.

I don't approve of this child's action.

The origin of rebellion in the class doesn't disappear through this action.

I think if one wants

to track social ills

and reveal them,

they can do so according to principles, with a wider, deeper vision.

Not in a private, personal framework.

In my opinion, no.

The dominant value system

tends, in these circumstances,

to divide individuals

and transform collective issues

into individual actions.

And this happens in most fields and social relations.

We are dealing with a regimented system

confronting collective resistance.

It tries to force to yield through one of its members' betrayal.

This emblematic situation can be extended to all levels of society.

So it's from this point of view

that I condemn this student's action.

I'm convinced that, as the film shows,

this adolescent feels uneasy,

because he's well aware

that he betrayed a group he belongs to

and regrets doing it.

Such an attitude will directly impact the social and political life

of the population we are trying to educate.

To my mind, there are two sides

to this student's action.

On the one hand, he's faced with a difficult problem

- the fact that he and his classmates miss a week's lessons -

he's trying to solve.

On the other hand, there is a solidarity among friends

that, despite its questionable goal or manifestation,

has positive aspects.

I think that before acting like this, this young man

should have started a debate in the group.

He should have invited his classmates to find a collective solution.

A solution that would avoid division.

He antagonized six classmates.

And would no doubt be disowned by some of his other classmates.

So his reaction provokes critical reactions among classmates,

while they should be friendly, fraternal.

Still, he was trying, quite rightly, to solve the problem.

We can neither condemn him

or say he was absolutely right.

In any case,

it's the school leadership I hold responsible.

It's up to them to adopt the suitable attitude

to avoid creating these critical situations

within groups of young people.

They should show great flexibility in the matter.

Forcing this child to confess

is a kind of

confiscation of opinion.

It comes down

to exercising oppression

similar to what it seems foreigners call

"Inquisition".

It's confiscation of opinion.

It is trying to...

expose someone's opinion,

manipulate it.

That's how,

I suppose,

a child's humanity,

by this maneuver,

is completely subjugated to your domination.

He becomes your thing,

a tool devoid of free will between your hands.

As I see it,

that has a bad impact

on the child.

Progressively,

he loses loyalty towards his own personality.

A child who, in one situation, denounces a friend,

can perfectly well, in another situation,

in a sensitive situation, behave treacherously.

His action is bad.

It is contrary to the teachings of Islam

to force a person

to testify against another.

A poem comes to my mind.

As Hafez says:

"Take things gently because by nature

"the world deals harshly with those who mistreat it."

If you act harshly and violently,

that will inevitably provoke

unpleasant consequences.

Case number 2, take 1.

Saturday.

Sunday.

Monday.

Tuesday.

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Saturday.

What do you think of the collective act of these students?

Their action,

the resistance they showed, is it just?

Please justify briefly your answer.

Shall I start?

In my opinion, what they did, that is to say...

not denounce their classmate, is absolutely just.

But their collective action wasn't complete.

What I mean is,

they obtain no benefit from it.

In reality, the teacher can also learn from the student.

Here, in a totally justified way,

the teacher could have been taught a lesson.

Because his class

was of no interest to the students,

who baited and drummed on the tables.

While doing what they did,

denounce nobody, quite rightly,

they could have guided the teacher towards a better approach.

I think their reaction is totally justified.

It's the least you can expect from a human being.

The reaction is just.

What is regrettable here is the teacher's mistake.

He should ask himself why, while he seems busy working,

the others ignore him and do something else.

I insist that these children did what they had to do.

Acting otherwise would have been a mistake.

As long as we don't condition our children,

their reactions are always just.

At their age, you can't expect anything else from them.

It seems to me that this solidarity

is a good thing as such.

What we have to observe precisely here,

is the origin of this phenomenon.

In short,

I'd say it was a reaction to the teacher's failings.

This reaction could even perhaps

prompt the teacher to take account of his weaknesses

and overcome them.

In any case,

I judge this action positively.

Rather than criticize it,

I insist on the need

to reflect on the root causes of such a reaction,

the context it appears in.

The resistance of these young people is unworthy.

They united in disgraceful action.

Resistance is essentially sacred.

But their goal

in leaving the classroom

is not just.

The class does not belong to these seven individuals

but to a group

whose liberty was violated by one of them.

I am convinced that, in general,

there is no such thing

as an offending, a guilty child.

Any more than a child behaving badly.

The fault lies only with the adults.

Just as at the doctor's,

the patient is right, on principle,

the child is right, on principle.

So, in my opinion

their action,

as an initiation of a resistance,

undoubtedly englobes

an extremely rich social and political value.

It develops their revolutionary spirit.

It builds them, so they can build the country.

Especially since to my mind they didn't commit any misdemeanor.

Their solidarity is infinitely more praiseworthy.

If their solidarity came after committing a fault,

maybe it would be different.

But for me, they didn't do anything.

They simply reacted to environmental factors.

Moreover, their solidarity is superb.

In the entirety of a teacher-student relation

such as we observe it,

the question of our society's dominant values

and the value system our culture flows from,

is clearly visible.

In fact,

the students express their revolt

against the system by reacting against the teacher.

At the same time,

the teacher's attitude to such a phenomenon

is characteristic of a society marked by rebellion.

Without examining the situation,

relying only on assumptions,

he condemns a group for the action

of a single individual.

In such a climate, the collective reaction of the students

may appear natural.

The film doesn't tell us

if the teacher finally unmasks the culprit or not.

All the students

are penalized for a week

with no effort to identify the culprit.

One person committed this fault,

implying the other six are innocent.

It is therefore obvious they were punished for no reason.

That proves that this teacher's judgments

are made with disregard for humanity.

For if we refer to the Islamic penal system,

better an unpunished culprit

than an innocent punished unjustly.

That innocent would experience injustice,

while Islam forbids injustice.

In my opinion, they behaved badly.

I don't see here any unity

or positive resistance.

Because they disturbed the class.

If we were in a political framework,

it would be different. But in the atmosphere of a class,

where telling the truth

should be the absolute priority,

these students behaved badly in my view.

I should say

that given the teaching methods imposed by the teacher,

such as we see them in the film,

for me, the students

at least proved by their resistance

that they're alive

and combative.

It's the education system that isn't fair.

In this system,

this kind of resistance is the students' best option.

They proved their humanity, their resistance, their militancy.

I think you should keep quiet. They should say nothing.

In any case, that's my belief.

It's a collective action

you should stick to. At this age at least.

At other ages, things could be different,

other things are at stake.

But in this phase,

in this age group,

their action is the right one.

I support them.

They're supposed to sit in silence

until he finishes his drawing. It's impossible.

You can't expect 50 students

not to protest while he draws, to talk about it after.

He could do his drawing earlier

so that when they arrive, the students benefit from it.

The course should interest the pupil or student.

I approve of their attitude. They did right.

They resisted. They rose up

against the injunction,

against the arbitrary order. I totally approve.

They behaved in a very just, worthy fashion.

This kind of attitude

is the only worthy of a healthy society and culture.

What will happen among them

with regard to the troublemaker,

we don't know. It's a different problem.

But their reaction to the problem

seems to me absolutely just.

This type of action,

in your perspective,

is a first step to cleaning out

the highly flawed monarchical culture

historically widespread among our people.

I'm referring to my childhood.

This culture is not specific to the past 25 years.

It goes back at least 50 years.

The culture instilled by tyranny and oppression.

The people has to allow

the continuation of despotic power

and tyranny.

These are the premises of suppressing that culture.

The culture of making informers.

From schooldays on.

So these students are absolutely right,

their approach is good.

This act,

of not denouncing the troublemaker,

does not constitute either psychologically

or religiously speaking

a betrayal.

It is, on the contrary,

a mark of loyalty.

But teachers,

educators,

all those in charge

of educating children,

should not behave like this towards students.

This situation is despicable.

They're actually asking them to betray their peers.

You should choose other ways to approach them,

so as not to break their spirit of loyalty.

You have to call on collaboration, compassion.

You shouldn't use youngsters, children in the flower of youth,

their purity intact,

as spies,

denouncing others' secrets,

disloyal traitors,

that's not what they are.

That shatters their personality

and lowers them, including towards themselves.

Solidarity and collective action

have a value in the absolute.

But the question of upbringing arises.

In the misdemeanor,

in mediocrity

going even further, in crime,

in addiction,

does solidarity have as much value as in a good deed,

in revolutionary action, in resisting injustice?

Therefore,

the value of solidarity

depends directly on its subject.

In this case, it seems

that solidarity exceeded its subject.

Since the obstinacy

focuses on an action

that happens to be a misdemeanor.

A more logical approach was called for

as much from the teacher

as the students.

In short, although solidarity is essentially good,

when its subject is unjust, it loses its value.

Resistance, in all its forms,

is for me a gesture

that is sacred and noble.

No matter what

the real or supposed motive.

Here it's exactly as if we imagined

drug traffickers smuggling substances

showed solidarity among themselves.

And we said that since solidarity is virtuous,

among drug traffickers

it is too.

I approve the attitude of these young people.

For me, faced with a common enemy it's the best means of protection.

Thanks to my experience

and work with young people,

I know this kind of incident happens.

I support them wholeheartedly

even if their unity sometimes goes against our work.

And we may be tempted to divide them to be able to teach them.

But I'm against division.

Because their unity can be beneficial

for our teaching programs.

Beyond the question of resistance,

an unhealthy culture has been instilled these past 25 years,

notably since 1956,

with the creation of the intelligence services

in our society by the old regime.

It's a culture of denunciation and snitching.

If you study the history

of the Iranian people's struggles of the past 10 years,

you observe

that most of the far left groups

were dismantled due to these indiscretions, these intrusions

we're used to live with.

The prying to identify one's neighbor,

know everything about his comings and goings.

Recently, the intelligence service

ordered all the notaries

and real estate agents

to send them the list of all the new tenants.

And in fact,

it was these agencies or neighbors

who, in this spirit of informing,

denounced people,

unaware of the consequences for these people,

or ultimately for society.

Therefore I venerate the action of these young people.

If I was one of their fathers,

I'd be proud to have such a child.

I don't think we can answer the question

whether these students did right or wrong.

This problem with young people is posed worldwide today

for all education experts.

It's very difficult here to totally approve of them,

or disapprove.

If these students hadn't acted like this,

if one of them had denounced the culprit,

he would have been partly right.

But with that, he would have lost his classmates' trust.

One negative aspect for a positive one.

But if we deny that and say they did the right thing,

there's still positive and negative.

They stuck together around a fault.

But it is a fault.

So it's hard to adopt a position

one way or the other.

There's good and bad in both cases.

It's hard for the students

to find the right balance and you must understand them.

At their age,

in their environment,

in their unity, you have to understand them.

Given all these problems of young people,

you need pedagogical rigor

in educational methods.

The answer is necessarily global.

Was this reaction just,

and especially, how could this situation have been avoided?

You have to take a longer view.

If they had benefited from a fairer education system,

one would have tried to understand why they weren't interested.

We think of them as children,

but they're humanity condensed

and quite numerous.

It's worth trying to understand

why they held out for a week.

I wonder why they went back each day.

Why didn't they try to overthrow this system?

They go back to class, with the same teacher,

they can't even mess around anymore.

So it seems to me

they were quite right to resist,

but wrong to go back.

They shouldn't have done it.

Each to his own.

If I were them, I wouldn't denounce.

You could call it fear or...

Maybe I was fearful as a child.

But today I wouldn't do it,

for I'm convinced

that this denunciation would do more harm than good.

First,

you submit the child to a kind of inquisition.

Next, he'll get used

to being society's policeman and feel entrusted with a mission

to report deviance, ready even to incite it,

by provoking conflict between people.

Morally, when a group

lives and works together,

to me, informing isn't just, even if a fault has been committed.

The effort should have focused on trying

to convince his classmate not to mess around.

Denouncing him only exacerbates the situation.

If the teacher expels the culprit, another will take his place.

The rebellion will persist and nothing will be solved.

SCREENPLAY, DIRECTED AND EDITED BY: ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: HOUSHANG BAHARLOU

SOUND RECORDING: CHANGIZ SAYAD

ASSISTANT: NASSER ZERAATI

KANOON 1979

ADAPTED BY: MASSOUMEH LAHIDJI