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The first important film to emerge from Iran following the religious protests and violence instigated by Ayatollah Khomeini's seizure of power in 1981, it is a landmark social film which dares to criticize the ruling hierarchy. Essentially the story of an orphan forced to survive by just about any means at hand, the story is laid out in such a manner that the indictment of the ruling class is implicit in the film. The children give inspired performances and the documentary style in which it is done lands it in the same category as Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows or Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine.