Close Up

Truly the best, freshest, most truly independent cinema is coming from Iran - or at least was in the nineties. Time will tell. My favourite is "Salaam Cinema", a film I would love to see again. This film, from Iran's Goddard (I spose you'd call him) Abbas Kiarostami is in the docu-drama tradition. It uses the real people who took part in the real events portrayed in the movie, it uses a documentary style, but it is a film - not a documentary. I feel you could add, but is it not a documentary? Because at times, you just don't know. A truly great film because it really sucks you in, time passes, I have no idea how long it ran because it was over too soon. Magic!

Method acting is taken to the extreme in the case of this film's main character, Sabzian, a real-life person who impersonated a real-life filmmaker (Mohsen Makhmalbaf) he deeply admired, and who is taken to court by a family he has deceived -- and has his trial filmed by Abbas Kiarostami. Watching the film, I was aware that these events really did occur, and that the actors playing these characters were the real people involved (the opening credits clue us in, when they say, "appearing as themselves"), but I did not catch on that the courtroom scenes were real footage -- to be honest, I'm still not quite sure. (That IMDb lists the judge in the credits as "judge" and not as "himself," makes me suspect that this is indeed all a reenactment.) But whether or not the entire film is a reenactment or only the time-shifting parts with Sabzian and the family at their home are reenacted, the moment where Makhmalbaf appears onscreen is a transcendent one, as true in spirit as "real life" (which it may indeed be).

Kiarostami is a true artist, the ideal described by Sabzian in the film, one who makes his films to depict the suffering of people. He's one of the few with the power to seem wholly pure -- he makes me feel, at least in the moment, that film's real artists are the ones who aren't mere stylists. They're the ones interested in our hopes, our guilts, our ambitions, our fears. The ones interested in people. And here, Sabzian is trying to do something for other people; he's symbol of their love for the arts, by himself masquerading as a great artist. He's living vicariously through the artist he admires, and in doing so -- however morally ambiguously -- accentuating the most candid aspects of himself. By simply assuming another name, he can have people treat his views with respect, and in this way the film is a scathing attack on celebrity status and the priority with which we give them. However, Kiarostami doesn't let us be satisfied with Sabzian's candor; we're never sure where we stand with him, and the possibility is that his entire court appearance is another grand performance. (With the credits rolling over a frozen image of Sabzian's face, and his general persona of a troubled but deeply good-hearted person, I was reminded of an adult Antoine Doinel.)

Kiarostami and Sabzian admit that we're all actors in one way or another, from a director to you and me: "We are the slaves of a mask hiding our true face. If we free ourselves from this, the beauty of truth will be ours." This film and "Taste of Cherry" have got to me on such an intimate and personal level, and seem so honest and truthful -- sometimes in a seemingly banal way -- that I don't know how I can recommend them to others. While I think this is a masterpiece, if you expect to be blown away you'll be disappointed. But with artists this open, if you're willing to open yourself up, too, hopefully it can mean as much to you as it does to me. 10/10

I find it amazing that this movie works as well as it does. The people in it are not actors. They are ordinary Iranian citizens who happened to be involved in a curious incident that aroused the interest of a very talented film director. As an American who is aware of the tension between Iran's government and its vibrant film industry, you can't help but to scour this simple story for an ideological message. Is it a protest film? Is it an "all is well with Iran" film? Well, it's not either. It's just a simple and relatively mundane story told by the people who actually lived it.

What I got out of it, and your mileage may vary, is a deep sense that there is something beautiful about seeing a relatively small matter as an event of deep significance, one that requires all your attention. There is no larger story that gives meaning to the small events portrayed in the film, but the people in it, as well as the filmmakers themselves, imbue them all with a great seriousness. All of it is done without a hint of parody or ulterior motive.

And it's not like Iran didn't have "big" issues to confront in 1990, as it was rebuilding its society after the brutal war with Iraq. The cheap and obvious thing to do, which many foreign movies try, is to tell a simple story with a background of an emotionally charged historical time. It's quite beautiful to see this movie avoid that trap. It's not like you'll be moved to tears or something, but that's a part of the point! In a way, the film's ostensible lack of manipulativeness is so fresh to American eyes that you might find yourself moved on a much deeper level. Well, that, or you might be totally confused. After all, there is no background score to instruct you on how you should be feeling at each instant.

This is a wonderful film of a very special kind. Not your average movie in the sense that it is highly realistic and its subject somehow pedestrian. But the humanity with which it is shot and delivered is amazing: a world of humility, pride and grace is portrayed which at the present time could be much more than what we expect. It brings home the fact that whatever we might think of people and their ability to act as horribly as possible, there's always art and the art of the heart.

You've been in court, for being someone that you're not, under a light that's put you right under the spot, a cinema director, or a fraudulent prospector, against a family who perceived your foolish plot. But events then take a turn, become surreal, as endeavours are inscribed on cine reel, re-enacting your conviction, with the family of victims, you play the lead in your own life and their ordeal.

An imaginative and inspired way to portray the events that the Ahankhah family went through when Hossain Sabzian decided to take on the persona of a well-known Iranian film director, with the cast playing themselves for the most part.