I’m pretty ignorant about Iranian cinema, but I watched Abbos Kiarostami’s Ten last night and thought it was damn good. J. Hoberman tells me it “questions the notion of film as narrative,” describing Ten as “conceptually rigorous, splendidly economical, and radically Bazinian.” That may very well be the critical kiss of death, but I was very much engaged by this complex glimpse of contemporary Iran. Are there other Iranian films out there I should see?
very far from an expert on iranian cinema, but i would recommend highly a film called “the white balloon”. more later–must clean body and teach (not at the same time).
I heard that Gene Shalit said about Ten, “so good I ululated”
just remembered another great film by jafar panahi (the guy who made “the white balloon”): “the mirror”. about a little girl who isn’t picked up by her mother after school one day and decides to journey home across teheran by herself. lot of non-professional and first-time actors from what i recall.
I just watched Kiarostami’s ‘Taste of Cherry.’ It simply follows an Iranian taxi driver, almost in real time, drive around city streets, agricultural fields and construction sites seeking someone who will help him commit suicide. In the course of his search he has a series of conversations with people — an off duty soldier, two Afghan immigrants, a museum worker — which range from the banal to the philosophical. The film is borderline dull, but there is something compelling about the calmness, the matter-of-factness and the dedication to his task of the taxi driver. I kept looking at my watch during the last 40 minutes of the film but in the days since I watched, the images of faces and dusty landscapes have stayed with me.