An 8 year old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi said that "I always have this film in mind because of the director's profound perspective on filmmaking and its strange and distinct structure." Indeed, this film is quite good, and not surprisingly has found its way to a number of "top ten" lists.

If they don't already, colleges really need something like a "modern Iranian film" class. For most of my life, Iran has been seen as this terrible place. And it is films like these that show, regardless of whatever our governments may think, the people of Iran are a generally good people. We must not confuse the people of a country with the rhetoric of its leaders.

The Iranian movie Khane-ye doust kodjast? (1987) was shown in the U.S. with the translated title, Where is the Friend's Home? It was written and directed by Abbas Kiraostami.

The movie is set in the rural Iranian village of Kokar. Babek Ahmedpour portrays Ahmed, a young schoolboy who inadvertently takes home his friend's notebook. That would normally just be annoying. However, in this case, it's truly serious. Their teacher has told them that if his friend again doesn't bring his homework to school, he'll be expelled.

Ahmed starts out on an odyssey to a neighboring village in order to bring the assignment book to his friend. Along the way he meets an unusual set of characters. Some are friendly, some are not, although no one is hostile. They just don't know where the friend lives.

Kiraostami isn't a Hollywood director. There are an infinite number of ways to begin this movie, but the way Kiraostami begins it is unique. We see an old, battered door. Behind that door we hear children's voices. OK--let's get inside and see what's happening.

That's not what Kiraostami does. He shows us the door. Then he keeps showing us the door. We don't want to see the door, we want to see the kids. For Kiraostami, that's our problem, not his.

Finally, when the teacher arrives, he opens and closes the door. However, the door swings open. By this time, the door is playing a supporting role in the movie. You can call this strange, or you can call this brilliance. I go with the latter.

Young Babek Ahmedpour is a great child actor. We agonize with him while he gets caught up in a high-pressure salesman trying to sell iron windows, and the old man who made the wood windows that may be replaced. Time is running short, and the old man wants to help, but he's too old to walk quickly. When you're eight, this is a nightmare.

Where is the Friend's Home is a wonderful movie, which works well on the small screen. It's the film that brought Kiraostami to the notice of the world. It has a very high IMDb rating of 8.1. I think it's even better than that.

A magnificent and unforgettable film with prodigious moments where you really wonder how the director did shoot some moments in such an intimate way without being noticed or without making the presence of the camera a problem. It's a poem (to friendship, honesty, childhood, purity) more than a movie.