First Daring Step into the New Wave

In every aspect, “The Runner” is perhaps the first feature film of Iranian New wave cinema after revolution, in another word, an adherent of the new movement. With an unconventional structure, that deliberately rejects all the traditional film principles, from narrative to basic cinematic aesthetics such as decoupage based on the continuity of sense in scenes and sequences, The Runner, gratifies the creative and ambitious mind of his director, Amir Naderi, who prior to this, had a conventional approach to filmmaking. After its first release, Amir Naderi, in an interview with Film Magazine talked about his artistic and personal evolution which according to him happened under the influence of europe’s new wave cinema, encouraging him to leave behind the conventions of narrative cinema and explore an innovative approach. The Runner is a thorough reflection of this exploration. With just a quick look at its original screenplay, by Behrouz Gharibpour, it will become clear that the final movie holds much less resemblance in form to the screenplay. At the time, some claimed that this daring and almost radical deconstruction of cinematic language is mainly due to the participation of Bahram Beyzaie as the editor. He has definitely had a huge impact on the general atmosphere of the movie, but let’s not forget that Naderi followed the same approach in the years to come, in movies such as “Water, Wind, Dust”, “Manhattan by Numbers”,”Sound Barrier” and “Monte”. So, historically speaking, The runner is still considered as a pioneer film in Iranian cinema after the Revolution.