Kiarostami

taste of cherries

but jesus every movie this guy directs makes me cry.

i think he sees each entry as a work? why are these entered as separate 'film' entities on imdb but impossible to find as such? MYSTERIES! i'm voting for TEN.

but yeah taste of cherries

i fucking love this dude

i would have a drink with abbas over any other director living or dead

i wouldn't know what to talk about... but then he'dd also be the easiest guy to bullshit with

i don't know. go di love 'taste of cherry.' i've really only seen a few of these but wow...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Will Through the Olive Trees finally come out in R1 on dvd in 2008?

Anyway, where is the friends home, but so many i've yet to see :(

i was going to vote for 'jahan-nama palace' but i fucked up my own poll by drunkenly using imdb. lacma in los angeles had an amazing retrospective in october, most of which i missed and i'm really regretting it. but i did get to see that particular doc and jesus almighty if it wasn't one of the most beautiful films i've ever seen, and yeah, i cried, if that means anything. hoping more than like five people vote in this.

Wait - where's Ten (2002)? That's my fave.

# 10 on Ten (2004)

criterion dvd, sorry

I'm confused. Is there a Criterion disc that includes both 10 on Ten and Ten? Or just the former? Or...?

i fucked up my own poll by drunkenly using imdb

sorry. someone should really do another poll. i thought they were the same thing for some stupid reason. anyway, Ten is in like my top three. blasphemy. kill. vote for it anyway, maybe it'll have the same effect (? ? ?)

Oh no big deal. I'll vote for The Chorus in its absence.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Happy new year, ILE.

I'm glad one of my last actions of 2007 was to pump my man Kiarostami. Yo - y'all should read some amaaaaaaaaazing essays in this neat little book called Subtitles. There's one called "Where Are Kiarostami's Women?" by Negar Mottahedeh. Fantastic piece about the ban against showing women in Iranian film. Don't know much about it beyond this piece. But Kiarostami certainly does.

Also Hamid Naficy's "Epistolarity and Textuality in Accented Films." I met Hamid a few months ago at a conf. Righteous guy. Great piece.

Edited partially by Atom Egoyan. Get it.

Just saw The Wind Will Carry Us, only the second of his films that I've seen, first one being Close-Up, that I must have seen around ten years ago on television late one night. Definitely going to watch more of his films. Very sad that this thread didn't have more posts!

I had an experimental kiarostomy as part of a paid study. They gave me $300 for having it out.

Close Up is one of the 10 best films ive seen in my life

btw The Wind Will Carry Us opened in the US in 2000, so if that's your criterion, I think it's ceratinly among the great films of the decade. Just rewatched, it's so layered...

i would like to see it again, i saw it in '99 in french in a salle in paris. seems like a long time ago.

He's 70, and Close-Up is out on CC BluRay.

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2001

Sicinski on Certified Copy:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2986

Abboring Kiarostami

love kiarostami and am so stoked for certified copy

speaking of him, this film YOU ARE ALL CAPTAINS is fucking brilliant and the fact that it hasn't screened in NYC is just bizarre (assume it'll happen this spring?): http://daily.greencine.com/archives/008013.html

Armond panned CC (but I am generally w/ him in preferring Makhmalbaf)

This is some kind of remarkable film, but I'll need another viewing to try to figure out what kind. I'm not yet in the 'masterpiece' camp, but I could get there.

damn, cant wait

CC is at 50+ theaters now, I think

So I don't have to brave the lines at IFC?

well, Lincoln Plaza can't be selling out on weeknights now

goddamn this movie is incredible

Yeah so that's gonna require another viewing.

I've never seen The Wind Will Carry Us available on DVD.

New Yorker Video put it out in 2002. They're out of business now, right?

it only lasted here a week :/

has anyone seen this twice yet?

I admire this movie a lot, found it fascinating and all that good stuff, but also there was something profoundly unpleasant about it, something bitter. maybe i missed something. but i do want to watch it again!

i should add im referring to Certified Copy.

Well, it's about a couple; how could it not be somewhat unpleasant?

but also there was something profoundly unpleasant about it, something bitter.

oh yeah for sure, bitter indeed - like it's a while since i saw it but i think i came away thinking of it a lot less warmly than some of the responses here suggest everyone else did. like i really appreciated how interwoven the conceit was, & the extent to which it dictated things, but how gruelling it was for it to be reared back into the characters experience again and again left a taste. in the interests of full disclosure i should say that i turned off scenes from a marriage after like, three hours or whatever out of impatience -- & in that as w/this it was the cyclical slides back into friction & miscommunication that i found so draining.

(as an aside, this was def the first film to persuade me aesthetically about digital, & RED cameras, &c. v beautiful.)

yes i think what was bugging me was that there wasn't really any sense of exactly ANY reason why these two people loved or even liked each other. but then maybe that's no so much a flaw as the point? no "original" relationship etc?

hey ryan, i was just reading the other thread, The films of Abbas Kiarostami., i wondered if you still felt the same about his earlier works. a decade later. there is something about the poetry i know exists in his films that is on a different plain to what is visible. even literally, the Farrokhzad poetry of the wind will carry us, which i feel slightly separated from by language and subtitles &c&c&c. i love the reach of his films. what amateurist said in the other thread:

There are a few scenes in And Life Goes On... in particular which are little bursts of inventiveness anchored to emotions.

I do feel the same, if only because I haven't watched any of those films since then (despite being slightly embarrassed by some of what I wrote on that thread). I do plan to watch Certified Copy again but I'm most interested in seeing The Wind Will Carry Us and Taste of Cherry again. I have fond memories of those two, despite being a little bored or put off by them.

The Wind Will Carry Us (Canada: English title) (USA) 0
... aka Through the Olive Trees 0
... aka And Life Goes on... 0
... aka Life, and Nothing More... 0
... aka Close Up 0

This is still, just, I can't.

haha, otm

i do like thinking about them. i really wanna read the jon rosenbaum/mehrnaz saeed-vafa book about him; there's a great dialogue here on the international/rural context for the films. i don't really rewatch a lot but the the wind will carry us would improve if i caught it again, i think. how the films perambulate is almost diverting from their under-tones.

not seen a one :(

I saw his second feature, The Report, last night, which has one of the most harrowing marital fights I've ever seen in a film. Aaron Cutler on it as a predecessor to CC:

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/copying-the-copy-20110310

Insight into his writing: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/movies/abbas-kiarostamis-challenges-with-like-someone-in-love.html?ref=movies

i know available on youtube isn't always a tantalising prospect, but: the report is available on youtube, fwiw; I'd always thought it was a short & was surprised to see that a few long full length things on there existed.

i can't quite bring myself to post in the film snob thread about the lincoln center season. i wish i was there. even the polling results here make me sad. i think i like life and nothing more the most, for how self contained & directional it is. it feels like his most efficient and concise, of that era, it's such a satisfying watch.

i feel like kiarostami falling asleep watching his own films is a transcendental stage

thx! The Wedding Suit is on YT also, which I am missing at the retro today.

The Report was shown in a digital copy of an old print; negative is long gone apparently.

i think the youtubes are their own peculiar blend of digitised vhs bleariness. thinkin baout hito steyerl. enjoy any others you catch - was actually most fascinated by the prospect of 10 on 10 when i was reading the precis, it sounded really interesting.

wow, seems like most of his major ones are on there.

The Report is available as an extra on the Criterion edition of Certified Copy.

and The Traveler w/ Close Up.

'like someone in love' is a bit bizarre, theres really such a light touch to the plot/characterization that im legitimately unsure what to take from it

I saw it Sunday and am still processing. Liked the cast, esp the old man. 60% of it in cars, OK. Overriding theme seemed to be losing family and the cost/ugliness of trying to connect to a new family/individual.

it feels v open to varying interpretations. a lot of critics seemed to get a deep loneliness/ennui vibe which idk

watching it this afternoon

I liked it!!

so no else saw it??

Out of country but desperate to see it. Maybe it will still be on in 3 weeks! Maybe?

I loved it.

i wanted some "Marienbad-isms."

this was very good! not as good as Certified Copy imo but still pretty great.

Just finished Certified Copy. Not sure I can recommend it for anyone who's been in a long relationship; I feel like I've just been dissected, found to be malignant, and (rightly) discarded with all the other medical waste. What an amazing film.

I was down to see Close-Up a week ago. Friday night, so, as per usual, I lasted about 20 minutes before I started drifting. I rented it a few days later, also Certified Copy.

I admired the skill and the performances (especially Binoche) in both, and, as you can guess from such wording, I say that in the most dispassionate way. (I was also relieved to read that the thing I was confused about in Close-Up--"Um, were they married?"--was supposed to confuse me.) I'm surprised that Close-Up is so high in greatest-ever lists, or that it's there at all. I can think of a few huckster/ruse films--I know admirers would hate that description, but that's essentially what it is--that treated the subject with a little more verve.

Confused about in Certified Copy, I meant.

Certified Copy is overrated. Close-Up is one of the best movies ever. I don't care if you want to judge it's quality on how much verve it treats it's huckster with, but that final sequence with them on the motorcycle, and that final freeze-frame, that is some of the most amazing imagery of all time.

of all time

but yeah that's a sensible redress
unbearable contrarianism here but, for real, close up is like my fifth-fav kiarostami, & i think there's a slight bout-de-souffle dimension to its prominence, representing a whole era or school of thought in lieu of alternate films that have more specific rewards. but it's great, too, is so funny, has a lot of heart, &c, so i don't think it needs denuding.

The freeze-frame was nice. Overall, I didn't find it all that visually interesting. Apparently there was a music video that paid tribute to the motorcycle ride.

a lot of the visual satisfaction of kiarostami's how tight it is, i think; something always incredibly judicious & economical, this sorta treasures of sierra madre academy ratio choppiness, really defined sense of space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoV6xfgCkcM

Close-Up is as mentioned my favorite, but I was still surprised to see that it was the only Kiarostami on the Sight and Sound top 250. I thought pretty much everything else he made in the nineties was better regarded. He was on top for a loooong time.

All those courthouse scenes aren't that visually arresting, but I'm still on board. It's the mood, the themes, and that perfect final sequence that does it for me. If we talked only visuals, something like Through the Olive Trees or The Wind Will Carry Us are probably more consistently masterful. They don't quite hit me the same way, though.

Mystified that Taste of Cherry fell off so sharply as I thought it was the consensus favorite for a little while there. But maybe I just thought that way because I saw that one first, and it knocked me flat.

i feel like the aesthetics of the courthouse scene - the variation in lenses, cameras & the vantage point of kiarostami aside them - are Doing A Lot in close-up. the attention of the onlookers is so rapturous, too. i always think of the sister, her glasses.

All the courthouse scenes are real, iirc.

ha, wow. right.

A fan's guide to Kiarostami by econ-blogger Tyler Cowen:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/04/what-is-the-best-introduction-to-abbas-kiarostami-films.html

close up is one of my all-time favorite movies, and imo pretty incredible as a gesture of forgiveness from one human being to another.

i think that a new poll is in order, as long as we can get more than 4 people voting for these films.

Dead :https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/jul/04/abbas-kiarostami-master-of-cinematic-poetry-peter-bradshaw

fuck!

what a shitty fucken year eh

devastating

Ach. RIP

Fuck man, RIP.

The Academy invited him just days ago iirc. Should've done that decades earlier. Tragic loss.

kiarostami is the academy

:-(

Great lost, we need his light more than ever.

I would be down for a re-poll. I'm going to watch a 5-6 of his films in the coming week.

^^ Me too. Fire up that poll imho.

man what horrible news to come home to. usually when someone i admire dies in their 70s i'm okay with it, but Kiarostami was still relevant and making great films. a huge loss.

gonna fire up my Close-Up bluray now

thats very sad. wish i was able to see the full season that the BFI did on him but his films meant a lot to me.

link roundup

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-abbas-kiarostami-1940-2016

Godfrey Cheshire on knowing A.K. and his films:

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/godfrey-cheshire-on-knowing-abbas-kiarostami-through-his-films-and-friendship

good read.

This is sad:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/14/abbas-kiarostami-film-maker-death-sparks-debate-patient-right-be-informed-iran?CMP=share_btn_tw

I just watched And Life Goes On for the first time this week, wonderful.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bf62d7777b4d9ffda443907cb517bad2c539a442/0_78_4096_2457/master/4096.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=52e9c6ebb9cafc559335f04e0281e026

what an incredible image.

can anyone think of other directors who might inspire (or have inspired) the same sort of reaction?

when ken loach dies, would anyone do this? im not even sure spielberg, a crowd pleaser, would get that.

spike lee might. but im struggling to think (though just cos im struggling, doesnt mean im right) of anyone else who had that connection to an audience.

That's more to do with the nature of funerals in the Middle East than with how much esteem a director is held in.

perhaps

Glenn Kenny on AK's last film and the van Heusen/Burke song (introduced by Dinah Shore in a forgotten 1944 flick) for which it's titled:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2016/07/hollywood-to-tehran-to-tokyo-the-journey-of-like-someone-in-love.html

Interview with his son: http://www.pardolive.ch/it/pardo/pardo-live/today-at-festival/2016/day-10/interview-ahmad-kiarostami.html Sounds like some of the forgotten stuff might be released more properly.

Glenn Kenny on AK's last film and the van Heusen/Burke song (introduced by Dinah Shore in a forgotten 1944 flick) for which it's titled:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2016/07/hollywood-to-tehran-to-tokyo-the-journey-of-like-someone-in-love.html

― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 July 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A++

https://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/season/mohsen-makhmalbaf-focus

Makhmalbaf focus looks fab

:D

Hope I make it to something.

I'm really getting into this guys work. For me his films are never boring, always compelling even if its grainy shots of a guy talking in close-up or someone just driving around. There's a lot of humanity, not in the sense of anything sentimental or "heart-warming". Although hes Godardian in some senses, he manages to keep a distance at the same time rather than push away the viewer

So many great scenes that linger in the memory - the main protagonist in "taste of cherry" being subsumed by the dust thrown up from the diggers, the motorbike ride at the end of "close-up", the repeated shots of the winding drive in "taste of cherry".

I didnt even mind the severe Brechtian ending of "Taste of Cherry". Usually, I detest those pomo turns but it was a lovely way to end the film imo.

Where Is the Friend's Home? is as tense and nail-biting a film as Rear Window.

Indeed

His last film 24 Frames (finished by others) has opened in NY. Godfrey Cheshire discusses with AK's son Ahmad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZIsVjDGjHY

It's getting a one-time free screening on Feb. 18th in Washington DC as part of the Freer/Sackler's Iranian Film Fest. It's very experimental, occasionally repetitive but worth seeing. The film is composed of an image of a 1565 Pieter Bruegel painting followed by 23 of Kiarostami’s own still photographs, to which he added subtle actions using computer technology

S & D: Iranian film

RIP Hossein Rezai

RIP Hossein Rezai (1978-2018) the (non)actor of Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees. He died after a lung problem but his bigger problem was that he couldn't afford paying the £130 hospital bill. pic.twitter.com/2ap5zjZlIh

— Ehsan Khoshbakht (@EhsanKhoshbakht) February 21, 2018

That's so sad..

Apparently Ahmad said that Criterion would release all of Kiarostami's films in 2019? Not sure how seriously to take that, but if they do ...

https://d3p157427w54jq.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/12/veins.gif

Same!

I'd settle for even just a Taste of Cherry upgrade tbh.

^ came here to post exactly that. watched it for the first time last night. so beautiful. Shocked that Ebert hated it so much.

Dear Me Of 21 Years Ago Who Didn’t Much Like TASTE OF CHERRY: You’re a fucking idiot.

— Mike D’Angelo (@gemko) April 27, 2018

I'll admit Close-Up left me completely cold, but seeing A Taste of Cherry has convinced me I need to try again. Other than that, what other films should I check out next?

I'm not the one to ask, since I'd say all of them. (I am sort of excited that I still have a number to see, too, including the entire Koker trilogy.)

what's your favorite (besides those two) ?

Certified Copy, without a doubt.

24 Frames didn't do much for me tbh

is there a reason why the taste of cherry guy appears to be picking up young guys for sex at the beginning? it was mentioned in ebert's review and i've never heard an explanation for it.

Certified Copy is amazing, but whenever i recommend it to people they don't like it...

I love Where Is the Friend's House? -- found it one of the most suspenseful films I've seen, more so because it's on such a small, personal scale. But yeah, Certified Copy is amazing as well.

is there a reason why the taste of cherry guy appears to be picking up young guys for sex at the beginning? it was mentioned in ebert's review and i've never heard an explanation for it.

― adam the (abanana), Monday, April 30, 2018 6:22 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't get that feeling at all. From the army guy on he was just trying to find someone to bury/save him.

yeah iirc it was a misunderstanding

Certified Copy was amazing. Thanks Eric

Jut saw 24 Frames. Was that Teresa Wright kissing Gary Cooper in the final 'frame'?? My eyes are bad but I'm pretty sure it was, I recognized the still even on that iMac. I totally flipped out. Movie was great btw.

oh OK, it's Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews in the last shot of The Best Years of Our Lives. Wild coincidence for me. https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/24-frames/

I can (maybe) understand Ebert's hate for Taste of Cherry, it was very slow, but it didn't ever feel boring and that ending was all time great

I liked Derek Jarman’s Blue so much that I thought I could appreciate a story being told with just the faces of the audience to look at, a kind of forced focus to a narrative

but really didn’t connect to Shirin. maybe I’ll watch it again at some future point

i think we need to repoll this at some point. what a pitiful result.

yeah I agree

this post from Dr.M. was brutal

Kiarostami

i think we need to repoll this at some point. what a pitiful result.
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Saturday, August 18, 2018 7:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I agree
― Dan S, Saturday, August 18, 2018 7:34 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kiarostami Re-Poll (i.e. Try Again, ILX)

Cheshire book

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6505-godfrey-cheshire-s-conversations-with-kiarostami

Koker came in today

Uh, y'all, this is *wild*

as someone who met and interviewed Mania Akbari shortly after Kiarostami's death (and has been subscribed for her mailing list ever since), this came as a shock pic.twitter.com/ZUONyWBZgv

— Roaming Words (@RoamingWords) June 14, 2022

fuck

Well that's unfortunate if true. =

*glumly adds this to his reading list*

https://images.routledge.com/common/jackets/amazon/978036789/9780367898649.jpg

Waiting to see what JRo says, too.

At least one retort

Akbari's efforts to paint Kiarostami as an abuser are not new (many times not related to her) in the last 3 years but they were weak and fishy. Last time she shared the short movie "Leech" from Bahman Kiarostami about a fight between him and his son (brilliant short movie btw)

— Soroush (@blissfulmalady) June 14, 2022

I’m fascinated by the numerous people on Twitter saying how much they loved Kiarostami and how deeply meaningful his work was to them but immediately they torched the bridge and proclaimed themselves done with him forever. Like, you don’t have questions about how he supposedly stole a whole movie? And that it’s about someone driving around in a car like in many of his other movies but they were this person’s family therapy sessions? And that there’s photos of him making the movie?

She makes it sound as if she went to Cannes thinking that she was going to be credited as director, and was rudely surprised when Kiarostami took credit?

I’m fascinated by the numerous people on Twitter saying how much they loved Kiarostami and how deeply meaningful his work was to them but immediately they torched the bridge and proclaimed themselves done with him forever.

Yeah, well, consider the platform.

Sounds like this all got a trial run on non-English Twitter a couple years ago but not much came of it?

I'm guessing the book she mentions is by Geoff Andrew, published last year... and featuring "a number of detailed interviews he conducted with both Kiarostami and his lead actress", but somehow this issue never came up?

That monograph is making the rounds too.

Well that's unfortunate if true. =

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.), Tuesday, June 14, 2022 11:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is disgusting, as are the last ten posts in this thread.

I think the news is upsetting to say the least, and it does call into question Kiarostami's entire body of work -- not for his inexcusable personal behavior and abuse, but as I saw someone say on Twitter (naturally), if he plagiarized an entire movie in the early 2000s, then what else did he steal throughout his career? These are severe accusations, and I hope they are clarified, because although this is the first I'm hearing of it, she sounds credible and it doesn't strike me as implausible at all -- not because of anything in Kiarostami per se, but it sounds like plenty of abusive men. Just very sad.

holy shit

The authorities (Letterboxd) have weighed in and are now crediting the movie to Akbari and acknowledging the gravity of the issue by giving it a new, jokey title.
https://letterboxd.com/film/uncertified-copy/

Really saddened by this. I hope that Akbari can be given reparations if this is confirmed.

acknowledging the gravity of the issue by giving it a new, jokey title

Are they tho?