What an achievement! Kiarostami outdoes himself in this film, perfecting his movie poetry beyond its previous limits.
Actually, this film has no name. When the first frame shows the number 10 on the screen, we latch on to it for our name. But it couldn't have one. What we have here is the countdown to an actual film, ten preliminary frames before the story will begin. In between the countdown we catch glimpses of a car going somewhere. Just like the film we never get to see (the "real" one, the one that will begin after the countdown), we also never get to see the car's destination. Only the preliminary voyage. Everything is deferred, off-center, outside our field of vision. There are no men in this film, only women and a child. All relationships and families are broken, breaking up. No center just a periphery, a liminal space in between.
The protagonist, an independent, self-centered woman, is almost like a man. Her son is almost like a man as well. The dialogs rotate mostly around Men or God or Truth (surely the protagonists of the film that will follow our countdown). As usual, Kiarostami deals with his favorite subjects: hierarchy (Who decides where the car will turn? Who gives the orders? Who gives the lecture?), economy ("You are the whole-sellers and we are the retailers," says the prostitute to the protagonist), friendship and belonging. As well as the always distant (distanced, retreating) truth, the voice or presence outside the frame.
But because everything is deferred, we never get to see a "real" woman as well. Only reflections, hints. Perhaps the protagonist's mother, her son's grandmother, is a "real" woman, a true Source. Perhaps that's why he insists on being taken to her (but they will get there only after the countdown is over).
There are many touching scenes. The exposing of the shaved head, the prostitute's laughter, the protagonist's question "will she say her prayers?", when her son tells her that his father's future wife will be better than her. Cinematic poetry shot in DV inside a car, how could that be?
This film forces the viewer to work, to guess, to create. It is a "writerly" film (a la Barthes). In a way it is a certain 'denuding' of Kiarostami's previous work, or perhaps just an echo, an introduction, a countdown to it. To say that Kiarostami's films are about Iran, is like saying that Bergman's films are about Sweden.
10 out of 10.
Actually, this film has no name. When the first frame shows the number 10 on the screen, we latch on to it for our name. But it couldn't have one. What we have here is the countdown to an actual film, ten preliminary frames before the story will begin. In between the countdown we catch glimpses of a car going somewhere. Just like the film we never get to see (the "real" one, the one that will begin after the countdown), we also never get to see the car's destination. Only the preliminary voyage. Everything is deferred, off-center, outside our field of vision. There are no men in this film, only women and a child. All relationships and families are broken, breaking up. No center just a periphery, a liminal space in between.
The protagonist, an independent, self-centered woman, is almost like a man. Her son is almost like a man as well. The dialogs rotate mostly around Men or God or Truth (surely the protagonists of the film that will follow our countdown). As usual, Kiarostami deals with his favorite subjects: hierarchy (Who decides where the car will turn? Who gives the orders? Who gives the lecture?), economy ("You are the whole-sellers and we are the retailers," says the prostitute to the protagonist), friendship and belonging. As well as the always distant (distanced, retreating) truth, the voice or presence outside the frame.
But because everything is deferred, we never get to see a "real" woman as well. Only reflections, hints. Perhaps the protagonist's mother, her son's grandmother, is a "real" woman, a true Source. Perhaps that's why he insists on being taken to her (but they will get there only after the countdown is over).
There are many touching scenes. The exposing of the shaved head, the prostitute's laughter, the protagonist's question "will she say her prayers?", when her son tells her that his father's future wife will be better than her. Cinematic poetry shot in DV inside a car, how could that be?
This film forces the viewer to work, to guess, to create. It is a "writerly" film (a la Barthes). In a way it is a certain 'denuding' of Kiarostami's previous work, or perhaps just an echo, an introduction, a countdown to it. To say that Kiarostami's films are about Iran, is like saying that Bergman's films are about Sweden.
10 out of 10.