The film frames Ahmad’s ultimate act of generosity and subterfuge amidst the renewed unfairness of the teacher’s strictures, as he hands Mohammad Reza his notebook containing the completed homework with the slightest smile. It’s one tiny victory in the struggle of childhood to know what you know, when the powerful keep telling you otherwise.
— Shonni Enelow (Reverse Shot)
The flower is a metaphor for the beauty of what the boy has done, for his sweet and sustained act of friendship, and also a reminder of the old man and the beauty of his carved doors and windows. It feels as if this successful conclusion to the boy’s quest were somehow the old man’s gift. Ethics and aesthetics come together here: the beauty of an action, a bit of human doing, and the beauty of a work of art, a bit of human making.
— Gilberto Perez (London Review of Books)
Synopsis: An 8 year old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.