Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28424 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-11-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 75 minutes

Customer Reviews

Makhmalbaf on the exploitation of an individual human being
Right now Mohsen Makhmalbaf is the foreign film director whose work I am devouring at every opportunity. "The Cyclist" ("Bicycleran") made in 1987, is one of the Iranian director's earliest films but still evinces the visual sophistication that has marked all of his work. The title character is Nasim (Moharram Zaynalzadeh), an Afghan refugee who has been digging wells desperately needs money to pay his wife's medical bills. Unable to find a job, Nasim tries several underhanded ploys to make money, all of which fail. Then a sleazy circus promoter finds out Nasim once won a three day bicycle marathon. With no where else to turn, Nasim agrees to participate in an even more grueling test, riding in a circle day and night for a week in a vacant lot on the outskirts of town.

People pay to watch Nasim ride in circles, having been told of his dire circumstances. The event becomes a true freak show, as sick and dying come to try and take away the spotlight from Nasim to their own suffering. But even as the crowd starts to support Nasim, the gamblers and street vendors continue to exploit his situation. Finally, he becomes the unwitting subject of a wager between two wealthy businessmen, who have a vested interested in the outcome. Again this tide of inhumanity, Makhmalbaf tells a story of both exploitation and resilience, in which Nasim's riding the bicycle becomes transcendent, even thought the odds stack against him are impossible to overcome.

"The Cyclist," the winner of the Best Film at the Rimicinema Film Festival, is in Farsi with English subtitles and runs 75 minutes. Certainly it reminds me of "They Shoot Horses Don't They?" with bicycling replacing the dancing as the metaphor for the endless repetitive nature of human existence. Makhmalbaf has a natural grasp of cinematic language that make his films visually compelling. In this film the main actor is almost a cipher, given meaning through shot composition and montage more than through performance. When that stylistic flair is joined with a compelling story as it is with "The Cyclist," then it is not surprising that Makhmalbaf has created one of the most impressive bodies of film work in the world today, even more so because he lives and makes his films in a country where doing so could get him killed (see especially "The Peddler" and "Marriage of the Blessed").