Veteran director Majid Majidi's latest film is anchored by a great performance from lead actor Mohammad Rahimi. But more than that, the new film from director Majid Majidi — best known for his 1997 drama “Children of Heaven”, the first Iranian production ever nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar — is about the right to have food, a punishing struggle to find and provide it in the absence of governmental care. Set in the Iranian village of Goorankesh, housed in an incredibly arid and seemingly inhospitable region, the film follows schoolteacher Davoud Soulan (Mohammad Rahimi), whose job lies on precarious foundations.
His livelihood is mostly privately funded — though his salary is from the ministry of education, he’s only a contractor — and his benefactor has passed away. Worse still, the dead man’s heirs don’t wish to continue the investment that allows him to provide lunches for his students. This pause in food supply imperils the entire school due to a domino effect: With no lunch, the kids will stop showing up, which would shut the school down after an estimated two weeks.
The teacher accepts the semi-transactional nature of his relationship with his students: It’s hard to fault a child for being hungry, and it’s difficult not to be moved by the desperate measures that Soulan takes to keep his school open. He lives in the building to save on rent (which then goes to food), and moonlights smuggling and selling fuel to keep the school running. (Here, smuggling is a pastime than many engage in, children included.) But it’s not so simple as Soulan choosing and continuing to do the right thing. His determination to keep the school open comes with some moral compromises — and this is what makes “Midday Meal” more interesting, and more fraught, than expected.
The conflict between pragmatism and generosity begins at a small scale and incrementally escalates. At first, it’s seen in Soulan’s hesitation at accepting children from other villages to his class — then in his rage at his mother for feeding guests at the potential expense of the children’s meals. Between Rahimi’s performance and Majidi’s patient exploration of his reactions, it comes off as very human rather than as an idealistic cipher for how the director wishes the world was.
Desperation shifts Soulan’s actions into more dubious territory, especially as one character even calls into question how much of what he does is charity and how much is pursuit of a guaranteed salary. Either way, Rahimi balances the character’s clear vulnerability with just enough ambiguity about his plans for the school, accentuated through Majidi’s restrained and naturalistic approach. The director’s deliberate obfuscation of Soulan’s immediate intentions — beyond his desire to keep the school open — make for a fascinating character study.
Rahimi plays him as a mostly sincere but deeply conflicted man, and most importantly a desperate one, capable of some rather unexpected deceptions. One of these is effectively kept hidden from scene to scene, especially once a sick old man falls into Soulan’s care. At one point, Soulan points out that the crime of fuel-smuggling is minor compared to the barons profiting off the very same — and shouldn’t the motivation, the practical outcome of the act, count for something?
Extract — continue reading at the source.
