This film promised to be a real sleeper. I am a teacher and knew I'd enjoy a movie about traveling teachers who carry blackboards on their backs. But the teachers split up and of the ten or so that start out, the camera picks the worst example of a teacher to follow. You don't realize this at first--you see him laboriously searching students with an interest in reading. What he finds is a group of child smugglers or mules and an exodus of old folks returning to Iraq. None have the inclination to learn to read even if the lessons are free. They're too busy and too tired. But Said, the teacher we're following, doesn't hear a word they say. The audience is in awe at the all-work lifestyle of these kids who only want to survive. Said keeps asking them if they want to read clearly not even hearing their responses.
Later he marries as a favor to a stranger whose friend is old and wants to see his daughter married off. Said promptly starts to teach her to read ignoring the fact that she could care less. He sends the kid off so he can pepper her with letters of the alphabet that she simply ignores. Later, his stepson runs off and the wife heads down the road in pursuit. Said thinks she's deserting him. He never does get why she went down the road or why she finally stops. She's found the kid but Said is clueless as to what has just happened. So he divorces her for being weird.
He was the worst ambassador for being literate that I've ever seen. In spite of him I was moved by the poverty, the hard dry terrain, and by the bravery and loyalty of the people who marched all day seemingly without food or water.
Later he marries as a favor to a stranger whose friend is old and wants to see his daughter married off. Said promptly starts to teach her to read ignoring the fact that she could care less. He sends the kid off so he can pepper her with letters of the alphabet that she simply ignores. Later, his stepson runs off and the wife heads down the road in pursuit. Said thinks she's deserting him. He never does get why she went down the road or why she finally stops. She's found the kid but Said is clueless as to what has just happened. So he divorces her for being weird.
He was the worst ambassador for being literate that I've ever seen. In spite of him I was moved by the poverty, the hard dry terrain, and by the bravery and loyalty of the people who marched all day seemingly without food or water.