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Plot:
Uganda, March 2000. At the request of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, Abbas Kiarostami and his assistant, Seifollah Samadian, arrive in Kampala. For ten days, their DV camera...( read more 
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:August 22, 2008Close-Up contains many key elements of Kiarostami?s cinema. The main character is innocent yet corrupt. Although here, unlike in Traveler (1974) or The Wind Will Carry Us, he is sympathetic. Both behind-the-scenes and within the frame, Kiarostami is self-critical as a filmmaker. We see him in the opening scene talking to the hero in prison and toward the end we hear him talking to his crew. In Homework (1990) he interviews the children and in Case No. 1 and Case No.2 (1979) he interviews a number of cultural authorities. The filmmaker, though as a fictional character, appears again in Through the Olive Trees (1994), Life and Nothing More? and The Wind Will Carry Us. This self-conscious cinema is a double-edged sword. It can be read as a self-critical cinema where Kiarostami questions his role as a filmmaker. Also, it can be seen as a means to distance the audience and make them conscious.
What is so specific in Kiarostami?s style is his attention to form and the role it plays in creating poetry and humor in his films. As Tati demonstrates, and as observed by Jonathan Rosenbaum, form plays a major role in creating cinematic humor. (4) What is normally non-humorous is seen and heard as humorous, ridiculous, or absurd through Kiarostami?s films. Similar to Tati?s Playtime (1967), Kiarostami?s fantastic short Orderly or Disorderly (1981) derives its power and humor through shot composition, the use of sound, and, in particular, Kiarostami?s voice over. The high angle long shots of the children in the school-yard lining up to drink water or getting on the bus, as well as the impatient drivers who complicate traffic in a Tehran intersection, reveal the humorous nature of chaos and order in public spaces.
The Wind Will Carry Us
Also, form as a zigzag pattern is emphasised through shot composition or camera movement. For example, the recurrent image of zigzagging roads in his films has become a philosophical and metaphysical statement as well as revealing the general situation of his characters. The zigzag path in Where is the Friend?s House? (1987) shows the many turns that the child has to take in order to find his friend. Similarly, the man who is driving on the hilly roads in Taste of Cherry is looking for someone to bury him. In Life and Nothing More?, the filmmaker has to find two children who acted in his previous film, following a deadly earthquake that shook northern Iran. Even sometimes the zigzagging movements of an object like an apple in The Wind Will Carry Us or the empty spray can in Close-Up show the randomness of fate. They are practically Kiarostami?s signatory shots.
Kiarostami?s later films, especially the three films that are known as a trilogy, Where is the Friend?s House?, Through the Olive Trees, and Life and Nothing More?, have a strong emphasis on landscape and architecture, revealing Kiarostami?s philosophical point-of-view. The beautiful view of trees revealed through the ruins of the village in Where is the Friend?s House?, the long shot of the cracked road in Life and Nothing More?, and the long shot of the wheat field in The Wind Will Carry Us, remind the audience of the beauty that the main character ignores. As Kiarostami gradually moves toward nature and rural characters and settings, the landscape shots become more instrumental in the structure of his post-revolutionary films.
A.B.C. Africa
Although Kiarostami uses small crews and mainly non-actors and no script, his recent documentary feature A.B.C. Africa signals the emergence of a new approach. It is his first film that is shot outside Iran and on digital video. The film is predominately shot in English, saturated in colour, and has wall-to-wall music. Unlike most of his previous films, A.B.C. Africa is populated with strong women characters ? a sharp contrast to his previous films, where the absence of women was noticeable. One can view this as another movement in his cinema that has started mainly with The Wind Will Carry Us and is continued in his most recent film, Ten (2002), films which feature mainly women characters.
Kiarostami?s cinema celebrates the economy of film language and offers an alternative to the fancy, excessive mainstream cinema. A controversial characteristic of his films is how they encourage the audience to reflect and creatively participate in them. His films challenge viewers? stereotypes and make them aware of their own blind spots. A refreshing experience of watching Kiarostami?s films is how they resist giving an expected, homogeneous, or exotic "third-world" image of Iranian culture to the audience. Each of his films, even those that are shot in the remote rural areas of Iran, reflect McLuhan?s concept of the "global village" and our disillusion of the image of "self" as separate, immune, and distant from the "other". -
MCT:April 10, 2008
Shot completely in digital format, this documentary sheds light on the problems in Africa, particularly Uganda, while displaying a rare sense of optimism
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