Orderly or Disorderly
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Country: Iran
Year: 1981
Runtime: 17 minutes
Color / Mono
This film's first shot shows students descending a staircase in a calm, orderly fashion. Its second portrays the same action as a chaotic rush. Separated by slates and Kiarostami's voice intoning, “sound, camera,” subsequent sequences describe the same dichotomous behavior in a schoolyard, on a school bus, and in the haphazard traffic of Tehran. Kiarostami described this as “a truly educational film,” but it plays more like a quirky philosophic aside.