The films of Abbas Kiarostami.

Speaking of which:

v. Freaky, almost Hobbesian possessive attitude towards women displayed by characters.

Yeah the women thing can be alarming. There's that beautiful appeal by the suitor which I've never known how to take: "I don't want you for your money, or your beauty. I just want you to have a place in the world." Kiarostami's subsequent films have shown him to be sensitive to the restrictions facing women in Iran, so his distance from this issue--his unwillingness to confront it--in these films can be seen as part and parcel of the attitude he strikes toward the village in general: inquisitive, never presumptuous.

Sold out.

I still haven't made up my mind if it's up the the standards of either Taste of Cherry or The Wind Will Carry Us, but its feminism is not to be ignored.

And while this obviously is meaningless to a certain degree, it's so goddamn obvious how badly Kiarostami has been positioning himself as of late that he really, really, really, really wants to be Jean-Luc Godard. The way he dresses, the way he shaves, the sunglasses he wears, the way he talks about his films, the way he regards himself as an artistE. My friend met him last year and said he was a complete twat. Beside the point, maybe, but I guess I just want to turn the knife a few times before I withdraw the blade.

I'm still open to seeing more of his films, but if the others would rather pull Godard/Bresson tricks for shits and giggles, I'm out.

Should I just go to the Makhmalbafs instead?

make some more list threads, girolamo.

Alright, I'll get you the second one, to which I'd respond: so what? But what the hell does the "homo" thing refer to?

Beside the point, maybe, but I guess I just want to turn the knife a few times before I withdraw the blade.

That was actually not Kiarostami you dug a knife into but rather a bag of old arguments which, upon being spilled open, you are now knee deep in.

Seriously, though, stop getting hung up on "homo pomo", as un-PC as it may be (love to the gay people, yo!). It's just an old rhyming term that my friend and I use whenever postmodernism tries to be too clever or too meta to the point of it's own bloviating stupidity. Kiarostami may indeed be a genius, his meta-ending may indeed be something new and different within Iran, but I judge it to be (by the h-p standards subjective as they are) homo pomo in extremis.

Whoa.

A Retro in Berkeley, can't wait. A few weeks ago I was telling my friend that after watching Apu by Satyajit Ray I simply had no desire to watch films for a while. Last week, thinking of other directors in the same vein as Ray I said thinking aloud "I bet Kiarostami has some films like that". Yesterday I found this quote:

"When Satyajit Ray passed on, I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami's films, I thanked God for giving us just the right person to take his place."—Akira Kurosawa

http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/abbas_kiarostami

Life and Nothing More is the most boring heap I have ever sat through. Bah.

well, you shd stay away from him, then.

RIP:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/04/abbas-kiarostami-palme-dor-winning-iranian-film-maker-dies

"Cinema begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." - Jean-Luc Godard

Apologies, didn't see the other thread revive.

Still, what a loss.

totally unrelatedly, I had just downloaded Where Is The Friends Home in hopes of watching it tonight. RIP