RECOMMENDED FILM #3
CLOSE-UP by ABBAS KIAROSTAMI
This semidocumentary tells the story of Hossein Sabzian, a cinephile in his mid-30s who finds himself in a most interesting circumstance. He convinces a family that he is the acclaimed filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and tells them they will take part in his next film. The plan goes awry and the suspecting family invites a reporter to document the arrest of the imposter. The story goes nation-wide, which attracts the attention of Abbas Kiarostami, who visits Sabzian, now in prison, and offers to make a film about the whole affair; resulting in an stunning, multilayered investigation into cinema, identity, artistic creation, and existence: Close-Up.
Close-Up is based on real events and every character in Close-Up is played by the people who lived the events in real life. The character Hossein Sabzian is played by Hossein Sabzian and so on and on.
To watch a trailer of it, click here
After you watch it,
To read my review of it, click here
Still from Close-Up (1990), dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Who is Close-Up and Taste of Cherry’s director Abbas Kiarostami?
Born in June 1940, the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has shaped the audiences way of looking at life with his poignant, poetic and humble films; often focusing on the quiet beauties of life rather than its big events. Kiarostami, in my opinion, is the creator of minimalist epic, who elevated cinema to an unparalleled level of purity with his poetic narrative. His marks are visible on the films of filmmakers all across the globe like Martin Scorsese’s Silence or Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree. He mentions that he prefers movies that put the audience to sleep in the theater. Saying ‘‘Some movies made me doze off at the cinema, but those same movies kept me awake at night, made me wake up thinking about them in the morning, and kept me thinking about them for weeks afterward.’’ His most well-known works include: Koker Trilogy, Close-Up and Taste of Cherry.