06/18/2002 Entry:
"ABC Africa - Abbas Kiarostami (2002)"

I was not mentally completely there when I viewed this, the newest film by Abbas Kiarostami. I just had a lot of things going that weekend (parents visiting, two upcoming trips out of town to plan, etc.) so I didn't really get the full effect of this as much as I probably should have. The long segments focusing on just the kids and singing and dancing caused my mind to wander, not because they were boring, just because I was distracted. It didn't help that this was in the tiny room at Music Box. I would have thought that a new movie by someone whose star seems to be on the rise would at least merit a week in the big room, not shoved into the little room sharing half a schedule with Late Marriage. I understand The Lady And The Duke is really a big screen experience, but come on.

Certainly this is the nicest DV cinematography I've seen, much of the filmmaking here is gorgeous. This is especially shocking considering bright outdoors is where DV tends to show the most weakness (because of increased contrast) combined with the fact that these were consumer level cameras, not even up to the level of say the VX1000. The small screen actually probably helped in this aspect, reducing the pixelization and blurriness which is inevitable when DV is blown up to 35mm (as evidenced by Promises earlier this year.)

At its heart this is really a Kiarostami film, despite the fact that as a documentary it is pretty straightforward. The combined shots of the kids happy kids mugging for the camera combined with the hospital scenes really brings home the expression of triumph over adversity. Everyone has talked about the dark scene, which sucks because it would have had a lot more impact if I hadn't known it was coming. It seemed to me to again bring home the adversity these people suffer through on a daily basis - something like the fact that there just is no electricity sometimes. I liked the lightning at the end providing the touchstone back to Taste Of Cherry, also adding a kind of emotional resonance.

The scene that most affected me though, was the one after the hotel where they go to the house across the street. First off, these scenes are beautifully shot. They look completely lit, even though they apparently aren't Although with Kiarostami you never know. One of the things he seems to do is challenge the way we view filmmaking. The scene begins with his cinematographer calling him down, saying "there is something worth filming here" and then he goes down and starts shooting. It seems to me like it would be just his style to set something up as being off the cuff, then make it the only thing in the film that gets produced like a real movie. For instance, this is the only time in the movie wherein we get a non-incidental soundtrack (actually the first time I know of in a Kiarostami film.) The music is haunting. Oh, I should also digress a moment here and add that there are at least two scenes where I noticed non-incidental sounds being added, although they were pretty subtle. One was in the scene where the crying baby is shown. The babies cries are pretty haunting, almost unhuman, and as someone is walking away the camera follows, and the cries never get softer even as the cameraman walks outside. This is very subtle sound editing that to me makes the point that seeing something like that never really leaves you, you carry it with you after you leave. I have forgotten now what the seond instance was.

Back to the scene with the music. The scene involves a marriage. A man and woman are getting married. I believe both their previous spouses, as well as one child each, had previously died of AIDS. Now they are getting married, each with one more child. This was where I started thinking of this self-perpetuating cycle that whole African AIDS crisis is in, that it seems like everything being done is so small in the face of such a huge problem, that really there is so little that can actually be done to solve it. Its right here that Kiarostami cuts to an extended shot of a woman hanging up her clothes to dry in the rain...I almost lost it. It was such a poingnat moment, a perfect representation of everything I had been thinking right then. Such a Kiarostami touch that shot.

I am now, hours later, thinking that maybe in a place starved for water, hanging clothes in the rain is the only way to get them clean, and maybe I misinterpreted that entire part of the movie, simply becaue I equate hanging clothes on a line with drying them. Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?

I was less interested in the later scenes, focusing on the couples adopting the African child. Kiarostami seems to be trying to offer us some hope here, like here is something tht can actually be done. This child is being saved, and perhaps if removing this child reduces the spread of the disease then more than one life is being saved. But in the final scene, as we see the faces of the children left behind, he reinforces the enormity of the problem there. Many writers seem to have written this off, saying it either didn't atatck the problem forcefully enough, or that it turned into cliche, but I couldn't disagree more with either point of view. I really hope to catch this again sometime when I can give it the attention it deserves (this si becoming a running theme isn't it?)