Apu’s World

Do parents always have the best interests of their children at heart? What then, of the horror stories one hears of child abuse (sexual abuse, violence, neglect etc) at home? Is this always the result of pure evil or can the desire to do good itself play out in twisted ways when it is backed up by fanatical or other screwed up ideologies?

‘The Apple’ (’Sib’ in the original Farsi) is an Iranian movie based on the real life story of two young girls who were locked up by their parents and never allowed to venture out of the house at all. In the movie, the girls are 12 by the time concerned neighbours complain and a social worker arrives to help the children, who are found filthy and uneducated, unaware of how to interact with anyone.

One of the things about movies with children in them is that regardless of the movie itself, the children are often a pleasure to watch. I’m not talking about the cutesy, precocious children of most Indian movies until recently; even in movies where the children’s world is shown as far from an idyllic one (as in ‘Taare Zameen Par’) - the children are very likeable. And this is one of the hardest things about ‘The Apple.’ It refuses to allow us to feel good somehow by showing the two girls as little birds soaring in the sun as soon as their cage is opened.

Instead, the movie is uncompromising. Even as the girls enjoy their new found freedom, there is no question that they have been deeply damaged by their incarceration. They run awkwardly, like a two year old child out on the road. They don’t know what a friend is. When two other girls on the road invite them to play and teach them hopskotch, they enjoy playing with them and yet, think nothing of hitting them with apples. It is not so much that they have become antisocial. They are simply unable to understand what being sociable entails. They cannot understand that things they want need to be paid for. At the most basic level, they cannot even talk in any manner that is understandable to others.

On watching these girls, the heart and mind are pulled in two directions. One knows that these are the victims of horrific abuse and as such, deserve every kind feeling. Yet, it is not easy to like them. If anything, they are highly irritating and the director (Samira Makhmalbaf, who made the movie when she was 18) makes no effort to make them likeable. There is happiness, but there is no sense that this is a problem easily resolved.

On the other side is a blind mother (who is curiously uninvolved most of the time) and the father who claims to love the children very much (and is indeed somewhat demonstrative) but justifies the incarceration on the grounds that the mother is blind and therefore he needs to shield the girls from harm that could occur if they were to go out. So entrenched is this belief that in his mind, it is the neighbours who are villainous and destroying his ‘family honour’. While agreeing with the social worker that imprisoning the children is bad for them, he simultaneously justifies it and it is evident to the audience that deep down, he is absolutely convinced of his rightness.

The film doesn’t make any explicit judgements, and in fact, constantly keeps the viewer’s sympathies shifting, unlike most movies where we would be led to cheer unreservedly for the underdog. It is deeply thought provoking and worth a watch simply to understand how abuse can arise not just from evil, but even from ordinary human beings with notions of good, gone awry.

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