Bag of Rice Film Review

This is a wonderfully warm and sympathetic reflection of Tehran and the people living there. It resonated with me. My father had a great affection for the country and the people in Iran. Even though I only visited there one time, he passed those feelings on to me through his stories. He enjoyed nothing more than when we would go to an Iranian restaurant and he would speak Persian to the owner and ask for the tadig (rice burnt) along with his kebab and nan.

This is a simple story of an elderly lady and a neighbor's small girl going out to buy rice. A bag of rice. A large bag. But it is much more than that as it propels us into the flavors, people and scenery of this city. It is a rather drab time of the year, early winter and overcast but the screen is jammed full of people going about their lives, sidewalk shops selling food products, cars and buses. Busy lanes, wet narrow back alleys and courtyards. One immediately is drawn into the mood when the older toothless lady, Masoumeh Khanoom (Masume Eskandari) takes little Jeyran (Jairan Abadzade) and her older sister to buy bread. Not our kind of bread. But big slabs of sangak just out of the oven. Warm and pimpled. Jeyran is too young for school and lives with her working class father and her many sisters in an enclosed courtyard with neighbors.

Later in the day, the old lady has to buy rice before her coupon expires and Jayran convinces her mother to let her go along and help. Across town. The adventure begins. But in this odyssey there is only kindness from many strangers who feel the need to help these two. Somehow they manage. Beautifully shot and acted, very likely just filmed on the streets with a handheld camera. The little girl is a delight. As determined as a platoon of marines and with a smile that can move mountains. She has a manner of getting her way.

The director is Mohammad Ali Talebi and one has to expect that this was likely influenced by Jafar Panahi's 1995 The White Balloon and his 1997 The Mirror, both about little girls in the big city. Films about children are popular in Iran partly because they keep you out of trouble with the censors. Nothing political here that could get the director in trouble. All the women are properly attired with head coverings and there is nothing but good people and God Be With You's. A lovely film to refresh your belief in people. The final act of kindness is when the old lady cooks and flavors the rice and has Jeyran carry bowls of it to all the neighbors. God be with all of us.