June 24, 2006
Close-Up
Reviewer: David HudsonRating (out of 5): ***½ We can laugh at or argue over the Guardian's recent list of top directors, but the paper's panel of critics did get one thing right: Abbas Kiarostami probably really is the most important non-American film director working today (and some might drop the "non-American" qualification as well). His films may not be everyone's cup of tea, but anyone who loves movies owes it to themselves to see at least one of his works. And if it's going to be only one, then it ought to be Close-Up, if for no other reason than the profound way in which the film reveals the vitality and necessity of cinema in contemporary Iran.
But there are, of course, many other reasons.
Close-Up not only packs an emotional punch, it's a brain tickler, too. We begin with the arrest of an imposter, Hossein Sabzian. What we learn over time is that it all began when Sabzian was sitting on a bus next to a well-to-do woman. He's reading a book by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and, on a whim, claims to be the author. She's impressed and takes him into the fold of her family. He borrows some money, one thing leads to another, he's found out and they all end up in court. This is basically where Kiarostami comes into the picture. It becomes clear that Sabzian was never after money but simply wanted to be somebody; as a movie-lover, that somebody was Makhmalbaf because, as Sabzian says, he's "a man who portrays my sufferings."
It's not giving away anything to say that all is eventually forgiven because it's then that Kiarostami convinces all involved to reenact the story for his camera. Everyone gets to play themselves. Thing is, nothing about this film is as simple as that wrap-up makes it seem. The making of Close-Up becomes one of its own essential aesthetic and narrative components as Kiarostami incorporates not only the confusion of mistaken identities, not only the perpetual guessing game over what's actually happening or being reenacted, but also the technical glitches of filmmaking itself, wrinkles other directors would iron out.
"Film is the story of the distance between an ideal self and a real one," Kiarostami has said: "The greater the distance between the two, the less a man's mental balance. Everyone keeps trying to bring the two closer to each other to attain some sort of balance.... I create the reality before the camera and then I pull the truth out of it." Michael Atkinson put it this way in the Village Voice: "If Godard was once the giddy Chuck Berry of self-reflexive movie-movie-ness, Kiarostami is the Dylan, moving past the bop and onto the straight goods." -- David Hudson
Posted by cphillips at June 24, 2006 7:50 PM
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