04/23/2002 Entry:
"CloseUp - Abbas Kiarostami (1990)"

Another fascinating film from Kiarostami, again made more interesting when I learned the story of its making. I also again found myself thinking that a train viewing would not do this movie justice. Sometimes you watch a movie, and after its done you scratch your head and say, "what was that all about? What a piece of crap!" This is how I think about a lot of David Lynch's work. On the other side is something like Close Up, where after its done I scratch my head and say, "what was that all about? I need to give that one another viewing." After seeing two movies from Kiarostami, I have to say I can't immediately think of another filmmaker who can put so much into so little. This film covers such a wide range of territories - our relation to films, film's relation to us, everyone's relation to actors and directors in films and vice versa, statements about mailaise in Iranian life (much of which I believe could certainly be expanded to apply to the rest of the world)...a wonderful rich and highly textured piece of filmmaking.

When I got home I read a lot about this film, and the one thing that really kind of threw me was the discovery that the audio problems at the end when Sabzian and Makhmalbaf are on their motorbike were faked by Kiarostami. Like the ending to Taste Of Cherry, he is (more subtly) bringing the fabric of filmmaking to the forefront. I was not surprised to learn that many of these players played themselves or that many of the scenes were recreations, but I was surprised to find that all the courtroom scenes were not recreations. Thinking about it now, it makes sense. Certainly I noticed while watching that the courtroom and prison scenes had a different quality - they seemed blurry as if a smaller format had been blown up. This was not present with many other scenes, for instance those in the Ahankhah household. The print was decent, the sound actually seemed to have been printed quite loudly. There is a video interview with Kiarostami, taken from the same sessions as those included on the Taste Of Cherry DVD, which is insightful and enlightening.

Seeing a film like this is inspiring for all those same kinds of reasons you always hear people say The Ramones are inspiring - it shows that anyone with a camera can make a film that tells a fascinating story, that still looks great, and that wouldn't cost several million dollars. Kiarostami says this is the only one of his films he really likes, and one wonders if the ease with which it was made wasn't a huge part of that. I know when I was in bands, it was the songs that just came out and were finished in one or two practices that were the most satisfying. The ones we labored over for months never seemed to be as good. I'm holding this one back from Netflix next to Taste Of Cherry in the pile to watch again when I can give them the attention they deserve.