Naderi’s early social realist work is raw and boisterous, as a boy is handed an innocuous musical instrument that becomes a tool of power and exploitation towards his gang of village friends.  

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A harmonica, an innocuous musical instrument, becomes a tool of power and exploitation in this economical (at just 70+ minutes) pre-Revolutionary Iranian film, shot in a raw, neorealist style that gives it striking immediacy. 

The 4K restoration is beautiful and worth a peek if you are into social realist works that plant you into a whole new culture. 

In the opening scene, a gang of pre-pubescent boys led by a big bully intimidate a kid (who would shortly after possess the titular object) by trying to ‘drown’ him in the sea.  In this coastal village of earthy customs, a harmonica becomes ostensibly a foreign object of interest to this riotous gang. 

So, the bullied boy (who looks like a young Rishi Sunak and perhaps just as puerile?) becomes king with this new thing that makes lovely sounds, charging, bartering and exploiting his peers for a chance to blow the instrument. 

It is obviously an allegory for the encroachment of capitalism (or foreign influence) and its control over a naïve populace.  We also have our own ‘harmonicas’ which we enslave others with or be enslaved by. 

“It makes such lovely sounds.”

But these kids are far too young to know about the forces of ideology, yet it is the innate nature of human beings to revert into natural states of transactional behaviours whenever a self-serving opportunity arises. 

Director Amir Naderi locates all of these from the point-of-view of these kids with authenticity.  While it is mostly a boisterous film, Harmonica is not without its tender moments, most prominently in a quiet, affecting scene between a mother and her child. 

This child, the bully in question, is so bewitched by the harmonica that he is willing to humiliate himself in public for a chance to play it. 

Naderi’s work would make an interesting double-bill with his compatriot Abbas Kiarostami’s The Traveler (1974), about a boy who exploits his peers by taking ‘pictures’ using an empty camera to scrape enough money for a ticket to a football game.

Grade: B

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