Abbas Kiarostami

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Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy doesn’t defy you to understand it, and yet it feels almost inappropriate, tasteless even, to do so—as if you were eavesdropping on a private conversation. This resplendently heady yet nimble essay film is effervescently structured around a man and woman’s thoughts about art, life, landscape, and love. The man, James Miller (William Shimell), is an author, in Tuscany to tout his new book, Certified Copy; his female companion and guide, “She” (Juliette Bionche), a fan, maybe even his wife, sells art both real and forged from an underground storefront that suggests a portal into Italy’s ancient past. Their flair for self-reflection matches the film’s own: From coyness to resentment, the voluptuously see-sawing tenor of their conversations becomes a commentary on the entwined relationship between art and life—how a painting or movie, like a kiss or a touch, can either woo us or repulse us depending on the perspective.Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
Though much of this film is a straightforward lecture on dental hygiene delivered by a dentist facing the camera, it still manages to be persuasively Kiarostami-esque in its description of young Mohammad-Reza’s life at home and at school before he falls prey to tooth woes (interestingly, Kiarostami found the boy who was having a tooth removed, then filmed the earlier parts of the story later). That some audiences find the film amusing testifies to the humor that can accompany great discomfort.Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
An assignment from the Ministry of Education, this documentary from the last years of the Pahlavi dynasty includes interviews with government officials who predictably praise teaching as a sacred, noble, and honorable profession. The teachers who are also interviewed are less starry-eyed: one speaks of ungrateful students and the job’s poor pay. The contrasting views reflect Kiarostami’s interest in education while registering some of his reservations about how it is practiced.Read More »

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Kiarostami’s fascination with both Tehrani car culture and the uses of power in post-revolutionary society come together in this documentary about a traffic officer assigned to enforce driving restrictions in central Tehran (a locale near the director’s Kanoon office). The officer, a rock star in his own world, remains coolly authoritative as he faces a steady stream of exasperated motorists.Read More »

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The rare Kanoon film that doesn’t involve children, this unusual road movie was made during the Revolution and afforded Kiarostami what may have been a welcome escape from the capital. Shot amid spectacular mountain scenery north of Tehran, it revolves around a young man on the roadside carrying a tire, trying to get a ride. After several minutes of failure, he simply takes the tire and rolls it down the mountain. This lyrical visual journey is accompanied by a triumphal score.Read More »

The first of Kiarostami’s films made for, rather than about, children was an experiment in combining live action and animation, done in collaboration with animator Nafiseh Riahi. As two schoolboys watch the movements of animated animals, on the TV (such as kangaroos jumping, fish swimming, etc.), one boy, played by Riahi’s son Kamal, says, “I can, too,” and imitates the actions. The music is sprightly, the mood fun. Interestingly, the second boy is played by Kiarostami’s son, Ahmad.Read More »

Abbas Kiarostami wrote:
“In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.”

Quote:
Mamad, an orphaned teenager, works as a messenger boy in a photographic studio, where he also sleeps at night. He falls platonically in love with a girl from a wealthier class; one day, thinking he sees her smiling at him, he decides to go to her house and ask for a job as a servant, so that he can be closer to her. But he receives only a decisive refusal.Read More »

Abbas Kiarostami wrote:
“In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.”

Quote:
A woman orders a suit from a tailor for her young son to wear to her sister’s wedding. The tailor’s apprentice, together with two other teenage boys who work in the same building, devise a plan to try on the suit at night to see what it feels like.Read More »

A group of men from the city of Tehran traverse the rural Iranian countryside on a jeep, guided by a set of descriptive, yet unavoidably imprecise directions, seemingly lost. The driver (Behzad Dourani), respectfully called “Engineer” by the villagers, eventually encounters his appointed contact along the side of the road: a gentle, courteous boy named Farzad (Farzed Sohrabi), whom the Engineer proceeds to instruct with disseminating false information about their search for treasure in order to conceal the true and undisclosed nature of their visit to the Kurdish province. On an introductory tour through town, the Engineer shows interest in the declining health of Farzad’s grandmother, Malek, an invalid centenarian whose family has been keeping a vigil at the house as she approaches death.Read More »