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Abbas Kiarostami is the leading Iranian director of the generation that
stormed the West in the 1990s.
Khaneh-Je Doost Kojast/ Where is my Friend's House (1987)
is a fairy tale about a child's drama consumed among the indifference
of the adults. A world that is too consumed by mundane chores and business
does not see and cannot share the emotions of a simple and noble soul.
At the village school the teacher punishes a child, Nema, because he wrote
his homework on a piece of paper instead of using a notebook like everybody
else. After school Nema plays with Ahmad. When Ahmad arrives home, he
realizes that he has mistakenly taken Nema's notebook. This would cost Nema's
a certain expulsion from school. Ahmad tries in vain to explain the situation
to his mother, who is busy taking care of the baby and the laundry.
When his mother orders him to go buy bread, Ahmad has his chance and runs
straight to the village where the friend lives. Unfortunately, Ahmad does
not have an address. Thus begins his odyssey. He goes from house to house
searching for his friend, but nobody seems to know him. Finally, someone
tells him to chase the cousin who is heading for Ahmad's own village. So
Ahmad runs back, only to be stopped by his grandfather who wants to teach
him discipline. He overhears a trader being called with his friend's last
name and starts running after him as he heads back to the friend's village
on his mule. Ahmad runs and runs and runs, but when the man stops at a
house, the child he meets is not Nema. It is getting dark and old man
wastes more of his time with a lot of stories and wrong directions.
Ahmad gets back gome and cries, while his mother gives him food. Ahmad
decides to write the homework for his friend and stays up till late working
on two notebooks. The following day in school Ahmad is missing. The teacher
is already checking the homework of the pupils. Ahmad arrives just in time
to hand his notebook to the friend and save him from certain expulsion.
Kiarostami's down-to-earth style is at its most eloquent in
Namayeh Nazdik/ Close-Up (1989), which stands as a sort of manifesto
of his art.
A journalist is driving the police on a hired taxi to arrest a man who
has posed as the famous director Makhmalbaf. The journalist is convinced
this will be the case that makes him famous. While the driver kills time
outside (close-up of a can he hit that rolls down the street), the journalist
and the police enter the house and arrest the man. The journalist did not
bring a tape recorder and is now desperately asking around for one.
Titles. The film begins with the director, Kiarostami, interviewing the
soldiers who arrested the impostor. Kiarostami is making a movie about the
impostor and interviews both the family and the suspect. The family is still
hurt by the fact that the director took advantage of their good manners.
The impostor, on the other hand, is mainly guilty of loving cinema so much.
Kiarostami asks the judge permission to film the trial.
The judge is surprised that such a silly case draws the attention of a
film-maker, but Kiarostami explains that this is the case of somebody who
pretended to be a director and that is intriguing for a director.
Kiarostami clarifies his idea of cinema when he ejects
"the director is the spectator".
The trial is shown as filmed with a cheap camera, but the flashbacks that
describe what happened are filmed again in professional style. The first
flashback shows a woman who meets a man on the bus. The man (the impostor)
has the script of a movie by Makhmalbaf and the wife offers to buy it, but
the man gives it to her for free and claims he is the director. The woman
invites him to their house.
Back to the trial, the impostor pleads guilty but claims he didn't do it to
steal, but simply because he loves art. The family tells the judge how the
impostor moved to their house and took advantage of their hospitality.
He promised the son a part in his next film, but one day the family
discovered that the real director had just received an important prize and
the impostor was not aware of it. That's how they became to suspect.
Another flashback shows how the father invited the journalist, the arrival
of the journalist and basically what happened during the first scene of the
film. The photographer let the police in and then photographed the arrest,
and how he started begging for a tape recorder.
Back to the trail, Kiarostami interrogates the impostor. The impostor
confesses that his dream is to make a film about himself. Kiarostami tells him
that he "is" making a film about himself right now.
The son accuses him of continuing his acting, of just acting another role.
But the man admits that he accepted the invitation to dinner because he
was hungry. That was the first reason, and then he couldn't resist the
t emptation to actually "be" a director.
The judged is moved by the man's honesty and his declaration of repent.
The judge asks the family to forgive him and the family accepts.
The impostor leaves the court and is met by a man on a motorcycle: it is the
real Makhmalbaf, and the scene is being filmed (awkwardly) by Kiarostami.
The director gives him a ride on a motorcycle and Kiarostami follows them on
a car, but the microphone is not working properly and so Kiarostami can capture
only every other sentence. Finally, they arrive at the house of the family,
and the impostor rings the bell. When he says his real name, nothing happens.
Then he says he is the director, and they open the door.
The impostor gives them some flowers and is invited inside with
Makhmalbaf.
The film is a metaphor on film-making. Kiarostami is paridying everybody while
worshipping cinema. The journalist is not interested in art, is only interested
in a scoop that hopefully will boost his career. The bourgeoise does not
understand the irrational impulse of the imagination and is only concerned
with the money he borrowed and saving face. The film that Kiarostami is
making inside the film is filmed with the cinematographic skills of an amateur
(the trial is filmed with fuzzy colors, the scene with the real director is
filmed with a microphone that doesn't work). The impostor confesses that his
first motive was to get some food and only later his passion for art.
To some extent, the film is also
a parody of Italian neorealism and the French nouvelle vague.
Zendegi Va Digar Hich/ And Life Goes On (1992) is a mock documentary
about Kiarostami himself on a trip to revisit his film
Khaneh-Je Doost Kojast/ Where is my Friend's House.
Right after the 1990 earthquake the director decides to drive back to the
village where he filmed the famous film and find the two children who were
the protagonists. He takes his child with him. The ride is long and arduous.
There are landslides everywhere and everywhere there are refugees scavenging
the rubble and mourning the dead. As the car makes its way through the crowds,
news and views of worse and worse disasters are heard... cars crashed under
falling rock... hospitals collapsed... entire villages wiped out.
The road is congested. The director decides to take a side road that winds up
steeply. He asks passers-by for directions. They tell him to go back because
the road is too difficult and dangerous for a car, but he is determined to
get to the village, and knows that the main road will be blocked for too long.
Along the way they meet ordinary people who are trying to rebuild their lives
among the ruins. Finally they are told that they are very close to the village,
and that the two boys have just been spotted along that very road.
The catch is that the road gets even steeper. The director has to try twice
before his car can get to the top of the curves, but finally he makes it
and is on his way to the last stretch.
This documentary is another metaphor for the art of making films. The director's
job is a journey through ordinary people that requires a lot of determination
and attention.
Ta'ame-gilas/ A Taste of Cherry (1997) is the film that established
his reputation world-wide. It is the document of an existential crisis, but
focusing on the last manic minutes of a man's life, without any details on
why he wants to take his life. It is also mainly a "driving" film, meaning
that the film is almost entirely about this man driving around and looking
for someone who can "help" him (one way or another). Pointedly, Kiarostami
does not give us any ending. We are only told what the man wants to do and
the reasons why he should not do it. But not what he actually does.
A man drives around in a nice car, staring at men in the street as if he
is "shopping" for a body. In the outskirts of town, he stops to listen to
a phone conversation and then tries to pick up the man, but the man sends
him away. The driver then picks up a young soldier and, again, offers him
money to help him, but this time we learn that this is not a pervert looking
for a lover: he wants the soldier to come back in the morning and bury
him, after he has committed suicide by letting himself die in a hole.
The soldier is scared and runs away.
The driver is left alone, again, in the desolate landscape. He finds
another man, a seminarist, but this one refuses on religious grounds.
Suddenly, someone offers to do it. He's an old man who works at the museum,
and needs money to cure his child. But, as they drove around together, the
old man tells him why he shouldn't commit suicide: life has a lot to offer.
The driver drops him off at the museum, then drives back to make sure the
old man will keep his word. Then, at night, drives to the hole and jumps into
it, while it is starting to rain.
At sunrise, Kiarostami's crew is on the hills shooting the film... Soldiers
are smiling at them.
Le Vent Nous Emportera/ The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
A car climbs the hills of an arid region, following a dusty road.
The occupants discuss the route in a semi-comic manner. They fear they
are lost, but they finally make it and reach a remote village. Their mission
is secret and has to do with the life of a matriarch, Malek.
The boss is a young engineer, who is known and respected in the village.
He is offered lodging by a family and is helped around by a child,
Farzad. Besides inquiring about Malek's health, the engineer does not have
much to do. Willing or unwilling he has to live the way the people of the
village live, and they are mostly children, elderly and women, as the men
are always working in the fields. His other occupation is the cellular phone:
whenever it rings, he has to jump on his car and drive to the top of the
hill, where a cemetery was and were a worker, Yossef, is digging a well.
A Mrs Godarzi relays messages about his operation from the city.
When the phone rings, the engineer has to drop whatever he is doing.
The ride to the top of the hill gives him a chance to chat with Yossef.
The engineer eventually finds out that a girl of the village is in love
with the worker. In the village, he can only talk with the child.
Day after day the engineer has nothing else to do than check the health of
Malek and run to the hill when the phone rings. Every now and then he meets
somebody and exchanges a few words, thereby getting a glimpse of their customs.
His colleagues sleep all the time.
The child, Farzad, is offended that the engineer
has treated him rudely, and refuses to be his friend anymore. The engineer
is getting anxious that his mission is taking so long.
One day, while the engineer is on the
phone, the well collapses on Yossef. The engineer runs for help and lets
the men use his car to take the body to the hospital. Yossef is saved, but
the engineer takes advantage of the doctor to visit Malek. When the doctor
orders a few painkillers, the engineer offers to go and fetch them.
The doctor gives him a ride on his motorcycle through the fields and teaches
him a lesson of philosophy.
Malek dies. The women parade in the funeral procession. The engineer is about
to leave on his car but first takes pictures of the ceremony. This was the
secret mission.
The engineer is looking for death (the death of the old lady) but finds
life: while waiting for death, he discovers life.
He is slowly swallowed by the life of the village, that is a more
natural kind of life. But he is fundamentally dead inside, and never
lets the life of the village contaminate him. He is a photographer, who can
only appreciate the colorful clothes and the ancient ceremonies. He cannot
penetrate their true nature. And, perhaps, even kills the old lady to get
rid of that village and return to his business. And the last thing he does
is take a picture of the funeral, salivating like a voyeur.
Kiarostami has little interest in the plot. He seems to enjoy leaving the
audience in the dark.
We never learn what the engineer's mission was.
We never see his colleagues.
We never learn whether he caused her death.
We never even see the worker who is digging the well: we only see his feet
when they carry him unconscious to the car.
As usual the child is a protagonist, even if he is not the main protagonist.
The child reflects the engineer's state of mind: friendly and gentle,
angry and anxious. When the child abandons the engineer, the engineer has
finally lost touch with the village life.
As usual, Kiarostami's close-ups are all for the protagonist. We see the
engineer when the engineer meets somebody else. The camera is fixed on him,
and rarely shows the people he meets. We know he's meeting somebody because
we see that he is talking to somebody, not because we see that person.
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Ten (2002) is the portrait of an upper-class woman through the eyes of
her child and through a number of dialogues that take place in her car.
The whole film is shot inside the car. The protagonist never steps out of it.
Her social life, including the relationship with her son and her sister, seems
to be confined to the car.
This is an unusual road movie, that does not take place on a
origin-to-destination axis but within the walls (and frantic traffic) of
a city.
The randomness of the trip (implicit in most road movies) is here made
explicit: there is no destination that she is
driving at. In a sense, though, there are many destinations that she is
driving at. At even closer investigation, the people she drives around "are"
the destinations. The fact that she drives gives the illusion that she is
in charge of her own life, a fact that remains in doubt till the end, when
she basically surrenders to destiny and maybe, by doing so, does conquer her
own peace of mind.
The film can be viewed as both a document of proto-feminist awareness
and as post-feminist revisionism. But the real point is the commentator
is largely silent, content with showing ordinary city lives.
The film begins with the close-up of a child sitting in the passenger's seat
of a car. (You can tell this is Teheran, because nobody, not even the child,
ever weats a seatbelt). For several minutes the camera focuses on the child.
One can hear the noise of the traffic (the constant soundtrack of the film)
and the words of his mother, who is driving the car, but can only see the
face of the child. Her mother divorced their father, and apparently lied at
the divorce trial to overcome laws that favor the man. The child is resentful
that she re-married and that she is a spoiled woman (a maid takes care of
the house, while she seems to spend the entire day driving around).
She drops the child off at her ex-husband's house.
The second episode opens with her sister waiting in the car. The protagonist
returns with a bag of food. As they drive back home, they chat. Her sister
warns her that Amin, the child, is getting too rebellious.
The third episode is about an old lady to whom the protagonist offers a ride
to the mosque. Praying is the sole occupation of the old woman.
The fourth encounter is with a prostitute, who got into the car when the
protagonist stopped. The protagonist's morbid curiosity dies away as the
prostitute tells her how husbands cheat on their wives and how, after all,
they are all prostitutes: wives are wholesalers, whereas prostitutes are
retailers.
Next, the protagonist gives a ride to a very polite and a little shy young
woman who finds solace in prayer.
After another scene with the boy, who shows no affection for his mother and
wants to be taken to his grandmother's, the protagonist picks up her sister,
who is crying because her husband left her after seven years of marriage.
The protagonist tries to cheer her up with talks of how weak women are
and how they should be stronger.
The protagonist tells her son that she has decided to hand him over to his
father. Her sister convinced her that he needs to grow up with a man.
Amin is surprised and can't be as confrontational as usual.
She, on the other hand, looks peaceful and reassured by this turn of events.
Then the protagonist meets the shy young woman again. This girl is now also
sad and jealous, because her fiance` dumped her. She even
shaved her head. The two women sympathize.
The last scene is, again, the scene where the mom picks up the child from
the father and the child asks to visit grandmother (which could mean that
the last few scenes only took place in the protagonist's mind).
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo pezzo, contattami
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