this film has gone far to establish Kiarostami as the successor to Godard as the next master of realism in film. While Godard's brand of realism creates a sense of ambiguity along with a sense of discomfort in his audience (Bande a part - Band of Outsiders), Kiarostami achieves the same sense of ambiguity while taking his viewer to an uncommonly tranquil if not peaceful place! It's astonishing that this movie is ultimately about suicide and after wards one feels exhilarated! Kiarostami never even shares with us why Mr. Badii is trying to kill himself and we as the audience never feel that we need to know! I suppose that underscores Kiarostami's mastery of narrative.
Kiarostami is obviously a very heavy intellectual deeply rooted in the Iranian literary tradition of the 1930-1980 period. The literature of this period produced the likes of Hedayat, Chubak and Alavi as great examples of writers who explored realism as a genre. I feel we see quite a bit of those writers in Kiarostami's movies. The hallmark of the genre is its attempt to withhold moral judgment on its characters at the expense of leaving the reader/viewer with a deep sense of ambiguity, and Kiarostami is extremely successful at this task in his recent movies. It's all the more remarkable when we realize that Kiarostami started out as a children's film maker and in his early movies he had to communicate very clear and unambiguous messages. Even some of his well known earlier works (Traveler, 1974) were done in that tradition. But in his recent movies, while he maintains the simple, easy style of a children's movie, he has achieved the mastery of realism by leaving out any attempt to judge his characters and in so doing has achieved a state of purity that is extremely rare among his peers.
If you're looking for a movie to offer a very complicated plot or one to move you to the edge of your seat, this isn't it! If you're looking for a movie that will linger in your mind and make you wonder, then this may well be it! Think of it as an artistic version of the thinking man's version of "It's a wonderful (medidation on) life" (with apologies to Mr. Capra!)
Kiarostami is obviously a very heavy intellectual deeply rooted in the Iranian literary tradition of the 1930-1980 period. The literature of this period produced the likes of Hedayat, Chubak and Alavi as great examples of writers who explored realism as a genre. I feel we see quite a bit of those writers in Kiarostami's movies. The hallmark of the genre is its attempt to withhold moral judgment on its characters at the expense of leaving the reader/viewer with a deep sense of ambiguity, and Kiarostami is extremely successful at this task in his recent movies. It's all the more remarkable when we realize that Kiarostami started out as a children's film maker and in his early movies he had to communicate very clear and unambiguous messages. Even some of his well known earlier works (Traveler, 1974) were done in that tradition. But in his recent movies, while he maintains the simple, easy style of a children's movie, he has achieved the mastery of realism by leaving out any attempt to judge his characters and in so doing has achieved a state of purity that is extremely rare among his peers.
If you're looking for a movie to offer a very complicated plot or one to move you to the edge of your seat, this isn't it! If you're looking for a movie that will linger in your mind and make you wonder, then this may well be it! Think of it as an artistic version of the thinking man's version of "It's a wonderful (medidation on) life" (with apologies to Mr. Capra!)
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