I have seen many impressive Iranian films over the years. "Ten" may be the very best of them for a variety of reasons. I think the film is remarkable because it looks so simple, but I imagine setting up the camera and capturing the realistic dialogue and plot-line we see in the film had to have taken a lot of preparation. I also think the director deliberately chose scenery to accommodate the backdrop of the film, and he must have driven around Teheran constantly to figure out which images to put in the background. I think the scenes with the murals of new arch-conservative president are very telling. "Ten" seems to have a lot of messages under the radar, including the subversive powers of all governments (certainly including our own in America) to censor art. I think the relationship between the mother and her son is a very poignant one, and it shows how children and adults simply live in different spheres of the universe. Film is strikingly similar in some aspects to American independent filmmaker Rob Nilsson's film "Signal 7" which came out over 20 years ago.
