Niroumand

　　艾米鲁是一个身体瘦弱的小男孩，他和街上别的男孩一样，整日在波斯湾海滩上拾甁子、捡破烂，来换取生存所需。在他们生活的这片沙漠里，有火车通过。追逐火车成了这些孩子们的一个共同的游戏。他们听到火车到来的声音，就会放下手中的东西，奋力去追，追过火车，追过同伴。艾米鲁在很小的时候就已经懂得了生活的意义，他知道，如果想要生活得好，就要努力奋斗。这种生活的感悟就是来自于他追火车的乐趣中。整个过程就是赛跑，和火车赛跑，和别人赛跑，追逐并且超越了，就可以获取更好生活的能量。为了达到这种目标，艾米鲁努力学习知识，在艰苦的生存环境下奋力挣扎。逆境求生和学习成长成为了他最熟悉的两种比赛。

　　This is an unusual film of exceptional values--75 minutes long in color, with hardly any spoken dialogs. I saw this Iranian film in Farsi without English subtitles at the Early Iranian cinema retrospective on-going International Film Festival of Kerala, India. That I was watching a print without subtitles did not make a difference as there were very few lines of spoken dialogs.　　This is a very accessible film for any audience to enjoy--its story and values are not merely Iranian, it's universal.　　The film is set in rural Iran that had not tasted petro-dollar prosperity. The setting is on fringes of desert land, where water is scarce, rainfall scanty and hardly any blade of grass is green. Add to it wind and dust that buffets and whips man and animal and you can imagine plight of the people who live on the fringes of society.　　The film is moving tale of a young teenager returning to his village with a goat--only to find his family and villagers have moved on to escape natures vagaries and that one old man remains. He gives the goat to him and goes in search of his family. Water is scarce and well water it treated with reverence and never wasted.