CLOSE-UP
Description
Internationally worshiped Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, Ten) has combined a little of the many resourceful and conceptual motion picture of the past thirty years, and CLOSE-UP is his many radical, shining work. This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a marvellous real-life event–the detain of a immature male on charges that he fraudulently impersonated obvious filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf–as the basement for a stunning, multilayered review in to movies, identity, inventive creation, and existence, in that the genuine people from the box fool around themselves. With the concept themes and erotically appealing account knots, CLOSE-UP continues to ring with viewers around the world.
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I have attempted to watch this movie more than 5 times in the last 6 months, only to find myself bored beyond belief within the first 15 minutes.In fact, just to be fair, on several occasions I even invited friends and family to watch the movie with me…. Only to find myself bombarded by derogatory remarks.This movie is 100 times worst than the “Taste of Cherry”.Don’t waste your money on this movie, because it’s not even worth the price of a “rental”
Rating: 1 / 5
Shot in 40 days, using courtroom footage and reenactments with people playing themselves, this “new wave” film by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is an absorbing journey into the nature of identity. What does an ordinary man become when he is assumed to be someone famous? The answer can be poignant, as it is in this film, and surprisingly complex.
Moved by director Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s film “The Cyclist,” a divorced and unemployed printer’s assistant pretends for a moment to a fellow bus passenger that he is the director himself. Suddenly becoming the object of respect and admiration, he allows himself to be drawn into a ruse involving an entire family, who believe that he wants to make a movie about them.
Legally, he admits in court, he is guilty of fraud. But morally, he argues, he has not done and never intended any harm. He has the heart and soul of an artist, which the limited circumstances of his life have never permitted him to be. Respected and admired, taken seriously maybe for the first time in his life, he is lifted out of his suffering. How this is all played out before the cameras makes for a fascinating study of art, imagination, and self. This film is both wise and touching and a worthy addition to the Criterion collection.
Rating: 5 / 5
Like other movies by this director, Close-Up moves slowly but somehow develops a quiet momentum that continues after the screen goes dark. I think this is partly due to Kiarostami’s sincerity. He feels a genuine interest and affection for his characters, and his movies can give you a powerful sense that yes, their lives are really like that, revealed in repetitions and small struggles.
The New Yorker excerpt quoted above suggests that Close-Up contains a protest against religious authority in Iran. I don’t see this as a main theme. There may be some subtle reading on which post revolutionary Iranian society is criticized, but the Islamic judge in the trial appears as a fair minded man and not in the least a zealot. He helps bring about a satisfying resolution. Of all the characters it’s the journalist who comes off looking most like a shabby opportunist.
Rating: 4 / 5
Quintessential cinema from the master Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, it weaves dramatic reconstruction and documentary reportage in the actual story of a man – Hossain Sabzian – who is charged with fraud and impersonation, when he ingratiates himself into the midst of a well off Tehran family, who take him for the famed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Against the background of the real court case, Kiarostami examines the relativities of truth and untruth, playing with the fabricated artiface of film, and evolving ultimately a celebration of the human spirit and imagination, and of cinema itself.
Rating: 5 / 5
This brilliant dramatic re-creation of an unusual case of criminal impersonation examines the conceits of cinema on one hand, but also the state of post-revolutionary Iranian society, where dire poverty and lack of opportunities can crush aspirations, artistic or otherwise. The writer-director, Abbas Kiarostami (“A Taste of Cherry”), read about Sabzian’s predicament in a magazine article, decided to film the trial, and then asked everyone involved to play themselves. A fascinating mash-up of reality and artifice, “Close-Up” is a minor miracle of engaged storytelling whose compassionate final minutes will leave an indelible impression.
Rating: 5 / 5