The Cyclist

The Cyclist (Persian:بايسيكلران, translit.: Bicycleran) is a 1987 Iranian film written and directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Plot

Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee in Iran, gives a demonstration in his town's square where he rides his bicycle without stopping for seven days and seven nights, with the aim of raising money for life-saving surgery for his dying wife. In the end, even after seven days, he continues to pedal endlessly, too fatigued to hear his son's and the crowd's pleas to get off his bicycle.^[1] One scholar analyses the film as an allegory which parallels the exploitation that Afghan refugees suffer from in Iran and from which they are unable to escape.^[2]

Accolades

In 1991 the film won the best feature film award in the Hawaii International Film Festival.

References

1. Adelkhah & Olszewska 2007, p. 137
2. Adelkhah & Olszewska 2007, p. 138

• Adelkhah, Fariba; Olszewska, Zuzanna (2007), "The Iranian Afghans", Iranian Studies, 40 (2): 137–165, doi:10.1080/00210860701269519

External links

• The Cyclist at the Internet Movie Database