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Ali (Mir Farrokh Hashemian) leaves them outside a grocer's, where a blind trashman spirits them off. Fearful of their father's wrath, the boy and his kid sister Zahra (Bahare Seddiqi) agree to share Ali's sneakers; Zahra will wear them to her school each morning, Ali to his in the afternoon. Complications ensue, vitalized by the boy's heroic goodwill and the girl's frantic fretting--her petulance is comically magisterial. When Ali enters a 4-km race, the film gets a case of slo-mo sentimentality; it becomes a sort of Chariots of Farsi. But Majidi can show family love among the poor without finger wagging. Ali and his clan have the affection of an ideal movie family. American kids and their parents ought to love them.
The Naderi family, in The Apple, is far more troubling. Neighbors petition the authorities about the girls' confinement; Zahra and Massoumeh are removed for haircuts and a good scrubbing, then sent home. But the old father keeps them locked in. His blind wife can't keep an eye on them, and there are boys living nearby. If anyone touched the girls, he says, "I'd be dishonored."
The girls yearn to see growing things; they make a painting of a flower by splatting two sooty handprints on a wall. Finally they do get out and play with two other girls, in a meeting as sweet and spooky as the one between E.T. and little Drew Barrymore. Massoumeh smacks an apple against one girl's face, then hands her the fruit. Baffled but beguiled, the girl kisses Massoumeh--who, inferring that this was a reward for aggression, hits the girl again!
The Apple, like the best Iranian films, is full of such privileged moments. But it is no simple fable of the Wild Child civilized. For two girls and their blind mother thrust into the light, a cave has its security, and the world its perils. The film can only wish the Naderi family the success that Iranian cinema had when it emerged from the shadow of the imams and into the glare of the world screen.