Ten (2002) User Reviews

real life, riding by

[jeremydee · 8/10 · 30 April 2003]

Yes, it's a gimmick: the entire film is shot from the dashboard of a car, and only the driver and the passenger are heard and (sometimes) seen. This gimmick will not please everyone, and hardly qualifies the film as a masterpiece. But Hitchcock's brilliant "Rear Window" was a gimmick too, and Kiarostami's "10" is no less worthy of attention. A movie has to be done well, regardless of its tricks, and "10" fits the bill. The driver of the car also drives the conflict; she is a recently divorced Iranian woman in a country in which women barely have the right to divorce at all. As the city rushes past--it's great fun to watch the people and places outside--she curses the drivers and pedestrians along the way but holds her own against the crises in the passenger's seat. Funny thing about a car: it gives one the sense of control (here, that's clearly an illusion) and the oxymoronic ability to remain private even while out in public. She and her women passengers air their grievances within this zone of safety; a scene in which a passenger slowly removes her head covering, a symbol of repression, is moving and unsettling. The greatest conflict, however, is between the driver and her young son, who's bitter about the divorce and lets his mother unravel until he, not she, controls where the car is heading. The boy's performance is astonishingly real, as much for the way he fills the silences as for his sharp and sometimes humorous counterpoints. The film could have done without the "countdown" of the 10 conversations--the source of the title--but no matter: everything in between is a delight.

8 out of 10

An Intense and Impressive Insight in the Women's World in Iran

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 19 December 2005]

"Ten" really impressed me for many reasons. The first one is the interpretation of the non-professional actresses and the boy Amin Maher. It is simply amazing the first sequence (number 10) with fifteen minutes of dialogs between the lead character and her son without any cut. The second reason is the intense and impressive insight in the repressed women's world in Iran. I believe that most of the Westerns have no idea about the feelings and the culture of Iranian women, and Abbas Kiarostami shows very real dialogs picturing the lifestyle of a middle class woman and some samples in other women of different classes (the prostitute, the religious woman etc.). The third reason was the simplicity and the originality of the location: inside a car, with a divorced woman transporting her resented son; her sister; a prostitute; an old lady; and a romantic young woman, along different days. I would never imagine such a splendid scenario for a movie with such a theme. Last but not the least, the remarkable beauty of the face of the driver (Mania Akbari) is awesome: she is exotic for Brazilian standards, but really a very beautiful woman. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "10 Dez" ("10 Ten")

A torn woman -- a universal story, with Iranian flavor

[Gruntled · 6/10 · 12 April 2005]

This is a subtle story. The central character is a divorced woman in post-revolutionary Iran. Her recurrent argument is with her young son, angry about his parents' divorce. She is torn between her son and her desire for independence. The other characters, representing women at different stages of life, carry on the argument with the driver about women's role in society. This basic story is universal. The setting in the Islamic Republic adds to the conflict. The varieties of piety the women show is especially rich.

Most of the actors are not professionals, and much of the story is improvised. Part of the reason for telling the story so indirectly may be to work around Iranian censors. There are some surprisingly slow moments -- long shots watching a passenger wait for the driver to come back. Still, I think it works.

Conveys a searing emotional honesty

[howard.schumann · 14 October 2002]

Ten conversations, four passengers, two digital cameras using two camera angles, one angry young boy, one agitated mother, and one great film director. That is the essence of the remarkable new film, Ten, by acclaimed Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami. Using only two small video cameras strapped to the dashboard of a car to eavesdrop on a series of semi-improvised conversations, Ten is a highly original film that has an experimental feel to it yet manages to convey a searing emotional honesty.

The opening fifteen-minute exchange between a divorced mother ((Mania Akbari) and her son Amin (Amin Maher) as she drives him to a swimming pool is amazing in its intensity. I don't think I've ever seen any sequence in a film quite like it. Amin urges his mother to allow him to live with his father rather than his stepfather. The camera does not leave the boy who expresses emotions seemingly beyond his age, articulating anger, frustration, and self-pity with sharp intelligence and humor. His mother is deeply unhappy about her relationship with Amin but stubbornly refuses to bend to his desires. The opening sequence reaches such an emotional peak that the remaining conversations become almost anti-climactic.

Other conversations examine the emotional lives and attitudes of the driver and her passengers. These include an old woman who visits the local mausoleum three times a day and tries to persuade Akbari to go to and pray with her. Another depicts Akbari's sister who discusses the mother's relationship with her son and new husband. In one of the best sequences, a laughing prostitute gets into the car thinking the driver is a man and asserts how women cling to men as their only source of strength. She claims that marriage and prostitution are different facets of the same business - the married woman sells sex wholesale the prostitute retail. Indeed, a recurring theme in the film is that, in Iran today, men dominate the society and thwart women's desire for emancipation.

All of these conversations expound diverse opinions about women in Iran and look at issues from a woman's point of view. The camera is trained almost exclusively on one of the participants and does not shift back and forth regardless of whom is talking. The only sound and light emanate from the natural street environment which can be very dark as in the nighttime vignette with the prostitute. In the process of these conversations, some new things about Iranian society are revealed, for example, that a woman can get a divorce by falsely accusing her husband of drug abuse. Kiarostami reminds us of the restrictions on wearing the veil, particularly in a scene where the friend removes her veil to expose her shaven head, something that must have caused the censors to scratch theirs.

As the film moves toward its conclusion, Amin's mother seems to acquire an inner strength that allows her to let events unfold more naturally. She offers advice to two other women who have experienced disappointment in their relationships and acknowledges that winning and losing are but two sides of the same coin. Most importantly, Akbari states many times that `you must love yourself before you can love anyone else'. This leads to another drive with Amin during which the mother is more able to just be with her son without having to discuss plans or expectations. I found Ten, though not always easy to be with, a deeply humanistic work and an extremely rewarding experience.

9 times out of 10, it works... not a bad ratio!

[toclement · 10/10 · 8 October 2002]

The front-page review of this film simply doesn't do this marvelous film justice. Renowned Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami takes an innovative approach at giving us a very deep glimpse not only into the life of mother and child, but also into Iran, its society and the situation of women transitioning to a more assertive role in society (however, I don't think one should be confused that the issues women face in Iran are not relevant to women elsewhere in the world, including the West).

The film has two fixed camera angles, one giving us a view of the driver-side and the other a view of the passenger side of an automobile. The driver is a mother who has left her husband and now resides with her new lover (she is the common thread in all ten "episodes"). Each sequence places a different person in the passenger seat, with particular emphasis on her son (who rides in four of the 10 scenes, if I'm not mistaken).

It is this mother-son relationship that is at the crux of the film, and for good reason. The performances of these two characters was nothing short of amazing. The boy in particular, with every eye-twitch, frown, smile, and outburst was able to convey a frighteningly realistic portrayal of a boy who is all at once obstinate, angry, disrespectful, and immature, yet still sweet and somewhat an innocent victim of the situation. He is unforgiving to his mother for walking out on him and "breaking up the family" and is reluctant to accept any explanation his mother offers. They trade barbs and though the love is there, you can see the seeds already planted in the young adolescent of a society that subordinates women to their male partners. Here, it is so profound that even a pre-teen lectures his mother on right and wrong.

The mother bounces back and forth between defending herself to accepting blame, showing the cracks of guilt that clearly lie beneath her composed and beautiful surface. And it's a beauty that her son can't recognize: she's a sexy passionate woman with needs of not just a mother but also as a lover and a liver; but like all children he can only see her as an adult and a mother.

The other key character involves a friend who desperately seeks a life partner, but finds herself unsuccessful at every turn. Most recently, a man she has been seeing tells her that he cannot marry her because he does not love her. She coyly reveals from under her veil that in her grief she has shaved her head completely. This act is astonishing not because it is defiant but because it is terribly charming. She can't offer an explanation as to why she has done it, but no explanation is necessary. Who hasn't at some time when an ego has been made fragile by rejection, sought to change hair, clothing, face, self? And it is with this scene, with veil pulled back, that the woman's beauty is uncovered, not because we see her hair or her bald head, but because of the insight the shaving act gives to her character, and her innocent embarrassment brings a smile to her tear-stained face that lights up the screen.

I give the film a 9 and not a 10 because of one sequence involving a conversation with a prostitute in the passenger seat. Presumably the driver has given a ride to hitch-hiker, leading to an intelligent conversation/debate about the world's oldest profession. But this scene seemed a little out-of-place, contrived, and added little to the more general theme of the rest of the film. This one slip-up notwithstanding, "Ten" is a creative and wonderful experience for film lovers who seek something out of the ordinary. And it has a final scene which punctuates the film perfectly.

To Watch Foreign Films is to Understand that We're All Alike...

[dcplaw · 9/10 · 2 January 2007]

The premise is very simple. A beautiful Iranian woman, married to her second husband (in a society that makes divorce nearly impossible for women to obtain) drives her car around town. She takes her son to a swim meet, goes shopping with her sister, gives an old woman a lift to Prayer, etc. The title of the film refers to the fact that there are 10 "chapters" to the film, each representing a different conversation she has with her various passengers on different days. By experiencing these exchanges, the viewer can expect a crash course on middle class life in Iran. Like middle class life anywhere, there are the written rules and conventions that one must obey, and then there are the practicalities, and the REalities. There is what is true, and what people tell themselves is true; what they want, and what they tell themselves they want. As in any society on earth, including this highly controlled, religiously based one, there is the hypocrisy. And we can soon see from the conversations our Driver has with her passengers, that there are also the largely unspoken hopes, fears, needs and insecurities of these people, who often appear to be going through the motions of life, rather than truly living it.

The film mostly focuses on how women view this world; but their perspective is primarily organized around and driven by their relationships with men, be they fathers, boyfriends, husbands or sons. The film is difficult to watch at first, because things quickly escalate into discomfort with the driver's very first passenger, but sticking it out is well worth the investment, as the exchanges each build on the ones that came before it, getting progressively deeper and deeper.

The women in this film are covered from head to foot, but still manage to lay themselves completely bare to us. It's a very simple concept, elevated to an amazing accomplishment. You will learn a great deal about life in Iran, people in general, and possibly yourself. I expect to be thinking about this movie for weeks, if not much much longer.

Kiarostami and a real life mother and son acting pair weave magic

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 13 July 2017]

Evidently, this was the film that gave the idea to director Jafar Panahi to make his film "Taxi" (2015). Kiarostami has made the better film of the two, discussing social issues in contemporary Iran, while Panahi's film deals with both social and political issues, with the latter being more predominant.

The child actor (Amin Maher) and the lead actress (Mania Akbari) are both commendable in their roles in "Ten". A trivia: in real life they are mother and son. Kiarostami has possibly worked further on his debut short film "The Bread and Alley" (1970) and picked up further clues on handling child actors in Iran from Amir Naderi ("The Runner," 1985).

Iran: Most significant cinema today?

[gareth_john_nolan · 9/10 · 12 January 2006]

My experience with Iranian film is pretty superficial having only seen a handful, but none have disappointed me. I saw Kiarostami's early film Where Does The Friend Live? and was completely blown away. I then saw Saalam Cinema by Iran's other giant Mohsen Makhmalbaf - and then I realised just how important this country's output has been.

Ten did nothing to diminish this view, and I'll try not to repeat much of what's already been said here. I saw an Iranian person on this site claim that there was too much lost in the translation from Farsi to English. This is always the case with translation, but I am quite sure Ten gets away with it. I recently saw Ingmar Bergman's Saraband and if you think language being stilted ruins a movie then I am sure seeing that film will shatter the view. The single thing that destroys it in both cases is the incredible power of the acting - the truth lies in their facial expression. I am quite sure 9 out of 10 people asked without context would swear blind Ten was a documentary.

In the western world overrun by "reality" TV, its significance is lost on some, but if you take the time to realise that these people are actually acting - and more than likely doing it for the first time - thats where the power lies. Try taking this film, put it in America and put Hollywood A-Listers in the car and see where it goes. Basically, how you could call both what they do and what happens in this film acting is opened to debate. This is true of the majority of Iranian output.

Ten would be significant for these reasons alone, but when you take into account how much insight you gain into the life of a woman in there who tries to say no to male domination and to "love herself" it really comes into its own. This is the case of much of this countries output - and what sets is far apart from other countries. What we learn ultimately is this struggle, though perhaps more explicit in Iran, is a struggle felt by all women in the world. It's a film which in that way unites rather than divides which in light of Iran's current status in global affairs is what probably what makes it one of the more important Cinema's in the world.

intriguing, exploratory and honest

[Babak · 9/10 · 6 October 2002]

Ten is an intriguing movie. Kiarostami explores the abilities of digital camera by mounting it at just two fixed angles on the dashboard of a car, showing us almost only the driver's and the passenger's faces. Such a stationary structure surprises by its moving content, which takes shape as the movie unfolds.

The driver is a young Iranian divorcée, recently remarried, whose conversations with a son, sisters, a young and an old woman makes up the ten episodes of the movie.

The performance taken from the kid is astonishingly natural, and other characters also appear to be just playing their everyday lives. Kiarostami opens an eye through the little gap of its two fixed digital cameras on the mundane facts of the Iran's capital life as experienced by a typical middle-class woman. The plots are so natural no one can find a better way of experiencing the knotted, contradictory complexity of such a woman's life in Iran from outside. The flow is of the scenes is smooth and the dialogues are, at least to the Iranian audience, courageous and funny, though familiar at the same time. It's a movie worth watching more than once.

Beautiful film and simple Lesson of cinema.

[nycterr · 10/10 · 26 November 2007]

The film shows ten rides of a female cab-driver in modern Teheran. The protagonist (a sunglasses-wearing beautiful woman) share a ride with her son, her sister, an old faithful lady, a prostitute and a female stranger. She discuss life and social issues, and repeatedly argue with her son about her recent divorce with the boy's dad.

The movie is technically interesting and well shaped.

---- Structure The film rolls the 10 sequences introduced by a a classic old school countdown which creates a sense of formal structure, giving the film an apparent "rigid" putting the audience as "analyst".

---- Camera and Sound Only two camera angles are used in the film (beside an odd little part where we see the prostitute outside of the car ...). And the sound is very basically real and full (city's life and traffic).

---- Content But above all, despise what some will say about the apparent boringness of the film, the content is amazingly absorbing. The issues raised are universal (divorce, women's position in society, love, despair, faith ...) and perfectly rendered by these non-actors.

One last point, the female protagonist is BEAUTIFUL !

Make. It. Stop!

[itchyfriend9 · 2/10 · 10 August 2003]

After sitting there watching a little boy yelling at his mother for fifteen minutes in a circuitous, repetitive argument that sounds like the actors are straining for material to fill up time, I knew I was in trouble. Unfortunately, the movie didn't improve. The centerpiece is a scene in which we watch a woman picking at a sore on her face for five minutes. And worst of all, that obnoxious boy keeps coming back for more yelling!

What is it with movies this year? First we got Gerry, which seemed like one long joke at the expense of the audience, and now 10, which qualifies as neither art nor entertainment, but more like something the director whipped out in a couple of hours in order to meet a deadline. This is just bad cinema. To call it boring is too kind. The Taste of Cherry was boring. 10 is just pathetic.

A Wonderful Film............

[turkam · 9/10 · 21 August 2006]

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.

Ten Deserves A "10"

[robertvannsmith · 5 May 2003]

"Ten" makes the third Iranian film I have seen. I was very impressed with the last two I saw and so I decided to see this one and I was not disappointed.

Abbas Kiarostami gives "reality tv" (movie ?) a whole new meaning by having a mini camera installed on the dashboard of a car to video tape what appears to be a woman's daily driving routine.

There are ten segments that are video taped (hence the title of the movie) as she drives to and from her daily activities.

First off, we get to see her and her son, Amin, discussing her divorce from Amin's father and how displeased Amin is with the fact that they divorced. Amin, of course, is bitter, as most children are who have had to live thru a divorce. He desperately wants to go live with his father.

Two more times throughout the movie we see Amin and his mother furthering their discussion and we get to see how their relationship continues to deteriorate.

Amin's mother and her sister are seen in one segment discussing Amin and his behavior and the aunt even gives her opinion that it might be better for the boy to go live with the father on a full time basis for a while.

We also see Amin's mother give an old lady a lift to a mauseliam so the old lady can go do her religious rituals.

Amin's mother also gives a lift to a hooker and talks with her for a while in hopes to get her to chose a different life.

All in all, the movie shows a deeply sensitive woman who wants to help others and be there for her son while being her own person.

It's truly a heart felt movie to see how caring she is even though her relationship with her son appears doomed.

Transforming Reality into Art

[p_radulescu · 10/10 · 30 March 2010]

With Ten, Kiarostami pushed very far the boundaries of his 'no-plot' approach. Even an illusory plot is no more in this movie. There is a video camera mounted within a car. A woman is driving throughout the streets of Tehran, taking occasional passengers, always women (with one exception: her son). Free discussions start every time, about this and that: all take place in the car, no crew is there, no director, only the driver - woman and the passenger - woman. The approach that was taken firstly in making ABC Africa is used here brilliantly: hand-held camera to free the movie of all cinematic restrictions and to ensure the interactive participation of interprets (non-professionals, like in all his works).

Nevertheless the spontaneity has inherent limits. The director is not there, but he chooses each new personage and before each sequence he gives general instructions about what is to be discussed. The flow of discussion is subtly controlled by the woman who is driving (who is the only professional interpret, Mania Akbari; in real life she is working in the movie industry, and like the personage in the movie she is divorced; her child plays his own role).

Anyway, each sequence is no more a scene miming reality: it is pure reality. It happens in this movie what happened in the contemporary art: like Warhol and Rauschenberg and all the others who renounced of creating images to represent reality, taking real objects instead, to create art, here in Ten, Kiarostami was able to get this great mirage: he took reality from the street and transformed it into art.

Subtle documentary-like masterpiece

[Teyss · 10/10 · 25 February 2016]

"Ten" is a lesson of cinema. It is entirely shot in a car with two fixed cameras: one on the female driver, one on her passengers. Long shots, no camera movement, no music, no dramatic event, just dialogues: Kiarostami boils down form to its simplest elements. He reaches the extreme extent of his documentary-like style that appeared in his previous movies, at different degrees. He seems to go back to the origins of cinema (notably the Lumière brothers), when a fixed camera was simply shooting real-life scenes. This is hinted by the numbers appearing as in rushes (10, 9, 8, ), which punctuate the scenes.

Paradoxically, these self-imposed constraints deliver a powerful artistic impact, for at least two reasons.

1. The movie gains in intensity, as if Kiarostami compensated the simple form by a strong content: dialogues are dense even though they are natural; characters are well outlined without being caricatured; Iranian society is depicted without concession. It notably shows women's difficult conditions: obliged to lie to divorce, criticised by their family if they do, alone when old, abandoned by their lover, sometimes obliged to prostitute themselves. The movie's freedom of speech is surprising considering censorship in Iran. Nevertheless, Kiarostami's goal is not to criticise his country: his movie has a universal reach, as show for instance the facts that none of the persons have names, that they have universal attributes (mother, son, sister, old lady, prostitute, friend), that there are no specific references to Iranian politics and that we never know where the car is exactly.

2. Kiarostami introduces small exceptions to the general setting, at carefully chosen moments, which enhances the aesthetical and emotional impact of these scenes. They are easy to notice because the film sobriety increases our awareness, since our focus is not distracted by secondary elements.

• As noted, there are only two fixed cameras. However at one point, a different angle shows us what is happening outside: a prostitute solicits a driver without success, then goes into another car. This sudden change of perspective plunges us in the reality of society: prostitution, money, male domination.

• Throughout the movie, the two camera angles are distinct: the driver and her passengers are never in the same frame. This reinforces the sense of psychological distance between the persons. However on rare occasions, they are in contact, which generates surprise and emotion: an old woman shows her relics, the mother touches the forehead of her son to feel if he has fever, the driver wipes the tears of her crying friend.

• Dialogues only occur in the car, however there are a few exceptions, for instance when the driver speaks to an outside merchant or to other drivers. The most striking examples are the short dialogues between the driver and her former husband, each one in their own car, on separate sides of the street. This highlights the distance between them, as well as the violence of their relationship, especially when the husband passes the car, blows the horn and shouts from his huge SUV which seems to crush the mother from her back.

• All scenes are quite long, in order to develop a separate intrigue, with a beginning, a story and an ending. However the last scene only lasts a few minutes. The son says "Let's go to grandma's" as he did previously, and the movie ends brutally. This short scene shows that life will go on as usual, that nothing will change.

This minimalist movie is hence very elaborate. Its preparation lasted a year and a half, the shooting as much as three months. It is a real tour de force: giving a sense of reality and simplicity by concealing skillful directing. As another illustration, the action outside of the car is perfectly coordinated with the inside, for instance when the driver speaks with external people, or when an ambulance passes noisily just as the characters became silent.

EVOLUTION

Apparently simple in its form, the movie shows the psychological evolution of the mother. She first seems rigid with her son (granted, he is not easy to manage). Then she wants to help two old ladies (one refuses, one accepts to be driven), tries to understand a prostitute she has nothing in common with, tries to comfort her sad friend. At the end, she seems more relaxed, as if these experiences had somewhat changed her: she laughs of her weaknesses and accepts that the father keep the child, even if it might be done out of resignation.

The movie in general also seems to evolve. Many dialogues are conflicting, with the son, the sister and the prostitute. Characters frequently seem to be in defence mode and to hide their feelings (symbolically, two of them are not shown: the old lady and the prostitute). As we have seen, persons are mostly shown separately, highlighting the gap between them. Then, in the penultimate scene, a woman exposes herself figuratively and literally: she voices her despair and takes off her veil, revealing her shaved head, a doubly astonishing act in Iran. It is a very moving scene, sober and delicate, crowning a subtle movie. The contrast with the final blunt scene ("Let's go to grandma's") makes it even more gripping.

If you like movies with action, special effects, simple roles and easy dialogues, I would not recommend "Ten". If you want see a movie about real life, be in touch with the characters' feelings, discover other countries' cinema and see how great a director Kiarostami is, then "Ten" is a top choice.

Terrific film - with an interesting insight into Iranian culture

[aaroni · 9/10 · 8 January 2003]

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I would recommend it to anyone curious about Iranian culture. It is one of those films which you watch and afterwards begin to think about the film as a whole in so many different contexts. The story is about men. The funny thing is that there is no men in the film except for the father who we never meet.

10 of course

[N_Sgo · 10/10 · 21 September 2007]

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.

Ten? A One would be more accurate.

[nchng · 1/10 · 7 September 2002]

Have you ever seen a film shot with only two camera angles? That's about all you'll have to brag about after watching this.

For a film with this little camera movement, the bread and butter of the story must be in the chemistry of the characters, which unfortunately are given no depth. I find it hard to care about the plights of people who show up onscreen with neither introduction nor apparent relevance. Since the characters are always seated, you might try to extract (or abstract) some meaning from the way that they move or react to the dialogue, but you'll probably be distracted by the people driving by the window and waving at the camera. Either that or you'll have to look really hard, because one of the scenes occurs in almost complete darkness. Seriously though, I wouldn't worry about it too much, because even though the main character develops through her experiences, it doesn't matter, because subsequent character interactions are essentially identical! The dialogue is as static as the camera angles.

Which probably leaves you waiting for the payoff, the epiphany that wraps up an otherwise diluted and uninspired movie. When it comes though, don't expect to care.

It's not that I don't appreciate novel ways of storytelling, or the insight that is often afforded by films that differ from my own cultural perspective. However, it still has to follow a few basic rules - i.e. it must be remotely interesting. Whatever the cultural, ideological, philosophical or political background of the film, if I don't care and relate to the characters by the credits, I consider the film to be a failure.

1/10

Ten conversations about depending on others to find happiness

[KynoJones · 3 December 2002]

Went to see this with my sisters. Well, we were going to see another film which was advertised to show at 7pm. We duly arrived and were told that the film we were going to see started at 6pm. A refund was complicated so I asked if there was something else we could see and - to cut a long story short - "ten" was showing at 7 so we saw that. It's something I'd been wanting to see, but the fact that it was marketed as a film by a briliant Iranian director was a double-edged sword in attracting people to see it with me. and having seen it, I thought this was unfortunate since the themes are pretty universal. (potential spoilers) it's about 10 conversations in a car between the driver and the passengers she picks up, namely her son, her sister, a friend, an old lady and a prostitute. her relationship with her son is strained - she's had a messy divorce. the discussions revolve around each of the passengers' search for happiness in their relationships. and it's well worth the watch. it's an unusual film because there's not really any conflict between the driver and the passengers, except between the mother and the son and, to some degree, the prostitute. the passengers unload their worries and the driver listens. it works. but the countdown (each conversation is interspersed by a number counting down, 10, 9, 8... which break up the rythm of the piece since some conversations are long and some very short) works to make it feel more like a short than a feature. by the end of the countdown, yer definately ready to get out and on with yer life!

Very compelling

[lyrxsf · 9/10 · 9 May 2009]

You have to see this movie to realize how to create a compelling movie by filming conversations between people sitting in a car! The simplicity of the style underscores the complexity of the themes addressed in Ten. The story meanders through big philosophies of like – marriage, parenthood, faith, sex, love – with amazing ease and grace. It starts with an angry scene between a mother and her young son. The protagonist talks to several different people in her car, but interestingly no adult men. Towards the last scene, the son gets angrier and more aggressive and dismissive. The mother, through all the conversations, seems to reach a point of acceptance with her sense of loss. The dialog and faces used in the movie are captivating.

Oh how I wish Hollywood execs would see (and understand) this one!

[Nobody-27 · 10/10 · 28 July 2013]

Many years ago I saw the "Taste Of Cherry", "Circle", "Children Of Paradise", and I don't understand how that amount of magic is coming out of one and the same country. I still have not cracked the code. There is something truly unique about Iranian filmmakers, which puts to shame all the big budget blockbusters, and even some more humble attempts at independent or art cinema of late. Perhaps Iran is France of east. What I liked about French Nouvelle Vague, I am starting to like about Kiarostami and his less well known colleagues.

Even before seeing this film I knew that it was, in a way, an experiment. Kiarostami wanted to make a film with minimal budget. Say, a few thousand dollars. And he did it, with result which puts to shame other similar attempts.

In "Ten" there is a car, driven by a woman in Iran, her child, her estranged husband, some other women, and that is about it. We barely even get to see the city. One also has to take into account the local rules and culture as well, which is less visible character in the film.

Think it is impossible to make a film out of those elements, with only two dash mounted miniDV cameras? Think again, because Kiarostami did it, and he did it with gusto and talent that left me speechless.

I will admit that the film is quite local in its focus, but also global in its theme. The local aspect left me wondering what the woman's job was, as she seems to be taking other women in her car all the time... until I learned that first of all, women do need all the help they can get in Iran (duhh...), and also that it is illegal (correct me if I am wrong) to drive a car alone in some parts of Iran or Tehran. It almost seemed to me that she was a taxi driver, but she is not. However, even with that little misconception on my part, I did not loose any of the joy of watching this deceptively simple treasure.

The best things in life seem to come from the places we would never expect.

If you are a lover of good cinema, than by all means, watch this film. If you have dreams of making your own films, perhaps you should buy this one and study it over and over again.

very deep movie ; great movie to be seen and analyzed in a group

[mo_bin · 10/10 · 30 January 2007]

I was surprised with the creativity and intelligence of director. Very deep and sensitive topics such as challenges of women in a closed society, challenge of being a mother who tries to be herself, challenges of a son who suffers from dilemma and divorced ....have been pictured through 10 episodes, with a small camera and using real people and real story.

I believe this movie provides a unique opportunity to touch deeply some of the important human interactions and find a real context to think about love, hate, relationship, parenting and child's world. Director tried to not judge. He finished the movie very quickly and leave us to ask ourselves: What is the difference between sacrificing for someone and loving someone? is there any victim? if there is who is victim? who is responsible? and other questions..

I also amazed with the intellectual ability of the child in discussion. He is made to be a lawyer in the future.

Excellent Film -- 100% Worth My Time to Watch

[Tekla-too · 10/10 · 15 June 2008]

I give this movie a rating of 10 out of 10 not because it could not have been improved somewhat. It could have been a tad bit better, but if it were better I would be very frustrated since it is not possible to give it an 11.

The actors were engaging; the script well oiled and full of folk wisdom, cosmic wisdom and slants I had never thought of before -- WOW. I was forced by some of the excellent dialog to stop and write down many of the things the lady driver had to say, especially when she was talking to women whose men (one a husband, the other a fiancé) had left them. Some of the advice she dispensed was nothing less than Stellar: "Honestly, honey. You can't live without losing. We come into the world for that. To win and to lose. Win! Lose! Why don't you want to lose? See what it's like. Experience. More experience. Nothing but experience!....You're weak. You've very weak. -- (the woman continues to cry, maudlin) -- You understand? You cling like this to someone who leaves you. It's useless. Forget him. We women are unhappy because we don't love ourselves. We don't know how to live for ourselves. You can't sum it all up in just one person. Life is so vast. Why depend on just one person? Why not be different? It's not love. It's an illusion." "If it's an illusion, what is love then?" the grieving woman asks.

"First you must love yourself. You despise yourself so much, you hurt yourself. Has he gone? Too bad. There's more than one man in the world. Are you still crying? Go on and leave him too. You're wrong to cling to him. It's an illusion. That's all! You were hurting each other like psychopaths. 'Why are you late? Who's on the phone? Where were you?' Why this, why that. People say women should please men. That is a weakness." Still weeping, the other woman says, "All the same, I was fond of him." "You were wrong. We're unhappy, dependent, clinging. When we were little we clung to our mother and father, then to a boy, then to a man, then to our child. Like idiots. He is no longer there. You can cry all you want. He's not there anymore....Should your life and your ruin depend on just one person? What's preventing you from being yourself?" The quotes above and more where what I copied down, and it was like manna from heaven for my ears to hear (and in my case to read). I may not agree 100% with what she said, but 99% yes definitely, and can't tell you how much it would have helped me as a person to have watched this film when I was 15 or 16 years old before the saga of all my heartbreaks with men began. It may not have changed my fate, but it sure would have changed my attitude enough to help me learn at a much younger age to roll with the punches! I would just like to add that I feel the weakest portion of this film is the very first 10 minutes or more. In fact, I got an entirely negative impression of the lady driver at the beginning of the film because I thought of her as another mom who yells at her child too much and has not learned how to communicate well. However this problem righted itself and I very much enjoyed her conversations with all of the people who rode in her car. I was also particularly touched by the story of the woman who traveled to the mausoleum 3 times a day to pray for the dead (among other things). Turned out both her husband and 12 year old son had died. Somehow her response of going so often to pray for them struck another beautiful chord for me.

Her conversation with the prostitute was interesting too, though I am not certain I learned anything from that one.

I think people who feel a need for plot and action in a film will not be able to listen to this film, and that is unfortunate. However for those who are able to and enjoy just listening, this movie will provide you with wonderful fare.

Razor-Sharp Depiction of Women's Lives

[l_rawjalaurence · 8/10 · 18 November 2013]

Comprised of a series of ten sequences shot on video inside a car, TEN depicts a series of conversations between the driver (Mania Akbari) and various passengers, including her son Amin (Amin Maher). There is no plot to speak of; the cinematic style is basic (comprised of a series of intercut close-ups between the driver and her passengers), yet the film manages to be utterly compelling. This is chiefly due to its subject- matter; through the conversations we learn a lot about the driver's life and thoughts - how she is at once willing to give advice to others yet experiencing agonies of parenthood. At some points she gives sound advice; at others we see just how difficult she finds it to sustain a relationship with her son. Director Abbas Kiarostami makes no judgment on any of the characters, being more interested in giving them the chance to tell us about themselves. The sequences between mother and son are particularly powerful; neither actor holds back as they talk to one another, while Kiarostami's camera focuses intently on their various emotions. Definitely worth looking at.

I don't understand people's enthusiasm

[tigger.bounce · 2/10 · 12 December 2002]

I had read many good reports of this movie and went to see it given that it was a little different and that I hoped it might throw some light on its country of origin, Iran. In fact it illuminated nothing, although, given the static nature of the cameras, the scene filmed in the dark was almost light relief. I find nothing to recommend in this film, the setting was bad (the difficulties of filming in a moving car were so obvious, with the background changing mid-sentence), the characterisation was shallow and the dialogue (crucial in a film with static cameras) was extremely poor. There may have been a revelation at the end that threw the whole thing into a new light and turned it into a perceptive essay on everyday existence. I don't know, I had left the cinema long beforehand...., I had some paint to watch drying.