What it sets out to do
Two Solutions for One Problem is a seventeen-minute Iranian short film from 1975, written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. It is not an experiment in form for its own sake, nor a polemic disguised as fiction; it is a tightly calibrated study of choice, consequence, and the thin membrane between childhood impulse and moral habit. Kiarostami does not ask what children are like — he shows two boys negotiating a small rupture in their shared world, then isolates the fork in that moment with surgical clarity. The film’s aim is structural and ethical: to present two causally plausible outcomes of the same initial condition, without weighting either as more ‘true’ or more ‘moral’. There is no voiceover, no music, no editorial punctuation — only the schoolyard, the torn book, and the repetition of the same setup twice. Its ambition lies in restraint: to hold still long enough for the viewer to register how much hinges on a single withheld breath, a glance held or broken, a hand extended or clenched. It treats conflict not as drama but as data — observable, reversible, teachable.
How it tells itself
The story unfolds in two identical sequences, each beginning with Dara returning Nader’s exercise book, its spine split open. The first sequence escalates: a shove, a shout, a tussle on the gravel, clothes torn, faces flushed. The second begins identically but diverges at the moment Nader picks up the book — he pauses, looks at the tear, then reaches for glue. Dara watches, then joins him. Both performances are uninflected, naturalistic, grounded in the physicality of pre-adolescence: stiff shoulders, hesitant eye contact, hands that fumble before finding purpose. Kiarostami shoots in static medium shots, mostly from a low height, keeping the school wall and dusty ground visible in every frame. Lighting is flat and even, daylight unfiltered. Sound is diegetic only — distant shouts, rustling paper, the scrape of a chair. Editing is functional: cuts mark the shift between versions, but there is no flashback grammar, no visual cue to signal ‘this time it’s different’. The craft serves the premise without embellishment: no close-ups to cue emotion, no score to steer judgement. Every decision reinforces the film’s neutrality — it offers two solutions, not two interpretations.
What repetition shows
What lands is the quiet force of repetition as revelation. Seeing the same exchange unfold twice — once as rupture, once as repair — makes visible what narrative usually obscures: the contingency of outcome. The film does not argue that kindness is easier or violence inevitable; it shows both paths emerging from the same starting point, with no change in circumstance, only in response. That clarity is rare. The absence of adult intervention also lands: this is childhood as self-governed territory, where rules are tacit and consequences immediate but unmediated. The glue, when it appears, is not symbolic — it is viscous, uneven, practical. The mended book remains visibly scarred, its spine held together by a brown seam. That detail matters: reconciliation is not erasure. The film trusts the viewer to notice the difference between a fist closing and a finger tracing the edge of a tear. It lands because it refuses to name what it shows — leaving space for the viewer to recognise, rather than be told, how fragile consensus really is.
Where it stops looking
What does not land is any sense of psychological depth beyond the immediate situation. The boys have no backstory, no distinguishing traits beyond their names and actions. This is not a failure of writing, but a limitation of scope — and one that becomes apparent only in retrospect. Because the film gives no access to interiority, it cannot explore why one version unfolds as it does. We see the fight, but not the resentment that might have preceded it; we see the glue, but not the thought that led to it. Some viewers will find this withholding frustrating, especially those accustomed to character-driven realism where motivation is legible through gesture or dialogue. Others may miss tonal variation — the film sustains a single register of calm observation, which risks flattening the emotional weight of either outcome. It also assumes familiarity with the social grammar of Iranian primary schools in the mid-1970s: the uniform, the chalkboard, the unspoken hierarchy of who returns what to whom. Without that context, the stakes may feel smaller than intended.
How it treats resolution
The themes that matter are choice as habit, conflict as rehearsal, and repair as practice. The film treats morality not as principle but as muscle — something strengthened or weakened by repetition. It questions whether ‘solution’ implies resolution: both endings are complete, yet only one leaves the book functional. There is also a quiet commentary on pedagogy — the school setting is not incidental, but the field where social logic is first tested and codified. The torn book stands in for any shared object of care: a classroom resource, a friendship, a social contract. Its damage is minor, but its restoration requires collaboration, patience, and the willingness to treat fragility as ordinary rather than exceptional. The film avoids abstraction by anchoring everything in texture — the grain of the paper, the stickiness of the glue, the grit underfoot — making its philosophical concerns tactile, not theoretical. It is less about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ choices than about how easily the same conditions produce divergent behaviours, and how little it takes to tip one way or the other.
Who it meets halfway
This film is for viewers who value precision over exposition, and who accept that a work can be rigorous without being elaborate. It rewards attention to gesture, silence, and sequencing — not just what happens, but how often, and in what order. It suits those familiar with Kiarostami’s later features, or with the Iranian New Wave’s emphasis on observational realism. It is not for viewers who require psychological explanation, narrative escalation, or stylistic flourish. Those who expect character arcs, thematic closure, or even a clear authorial stance may find it withholding or inconclusive. A teacher using it in a classroom on conflict resolution would likely find it useful; a teenager seeking immersion in another world would not. Its brevity is not convenience — it is necessity. To extend it would dilute its method. Anyone expecting a ‘message’ will leave unsettled, because the film offers no verdict — only two outcomes, equally real, equally possible.
Why seventeen minutes is enough
Yes, it is worth your evening — provided you watch it as a single unit, undistracted, and allow its repetitions to settle before moving on. Seventeen minutes is not trivial time, but it is time spent observing how human behaviour folds and refolds under slight pressure. It earns that time by refusing to flatter the viewer with easy meaning or emotional payoff. Those who dislike it tend to do so on grounds of austerity: they want more context, more voice, more signposting. They are not wrong — the film is spare by design — but their objection confirms its success, not its failure. A longer, richer version would not improve it; it would dissolve the very tension it holds in balance. Its value lies in its economy: it asks only that you watch closely, twice, and decide for yourself what the difference between the two versions says about how we live together. That is not a small ask — but it is a fair one.
