KIarostami, The colours, 1976
see also:
Je pense au Petit Prince, c'est un film pour lui.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
1:33 PM
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Friday, May 10, 2019
see also:
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Jafar Panahi: Crimson Gold (2003)
Art is much higher than politics... You never say what's wrong or right. We just show the problems.
(Jafar Panahi)
(Jafar Panahi)
It starts like a film noir, a scene of robbery with an absurd outcome, excellently shot, with an incredible rhythm, with guts, and one could expect the movie will go on this way, kind of Quentin Tarantino on the steroids. Actually this starting scene, coming again at the end, is the moment of explosion in the story.
Crimson Gold (طلای سرخ Talaye Sorkh), released in 2003, with Jafar Panahi as director and Abbas Kiarostami as screenwriter; it is the second movie of this tandem that I've watched (the other was The White Balloon). Two films showing a society that rejects the people who don't fit in the canons. In The White Balloon it's the Afghan boy (only there the idea is subtly hidden up to the end). Here in Crimson Gold, it's Hussein, the pizza delivery guy, who is played by a non-professional, Hossain Emadeddin. Like his personage, he is in real life a pizza delivery man. Like his personage, he is under medication for a form of schizophrenia. His performance is remarkable. Looking always like he's carrying all his household with him everywhere he goes, while able exactly this way to induce the feeling that he is his own guy. Silent, quiet, apparently in total selfcontrol, while able exactly this way to communicate to us his terrible tensions that boil in himself and make him a walking time-bomb.
As a schizophrenic, Hussein sees the society through his own mirror (and the idea of shooting him so often through the shield of his motorbike is genial). Actually, that shield acts both ways: Hussein is in turn the perfect mirror of the society surrounding him. It is a society sick of the same schizophrenia, an absurd universe where everybody is hostile to all the others, parents are denouncing their children, police arrest anybody for anything, simple people float freely toward petty crime, rich people are surrounded by a richness that is absurd by lack of meaning.
Each sequence of the movie calls for a moment of disruption, you cannot stand to such absurdity, you have to explode, and there are small disruptions all along, culminating with the big one, the failed robbery.
It's not only about Iran, as many reviewers consider. This film is a metaphor, and a metaphor is universal. The movie is banned in Iran while its director was not allowed to enter US to assist at the screening there. Director Jafar Panahi is banned in his own country and is suspected elsewhere as coming from his own country.
The robbery scene that links the beginning and the end of the movie shows a universe that is circular with no way to escape (also in The White Balloon the first and the last scenes are the same). It's an extremely nihilistic movie: there is no superior order (cosmic or divine) to show us the way, to offer us solace, to teach us higher wisdom. The whole universe is a walking time-bomb.
(Jafar Panahi)
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami, Panahi
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
12:55 PM
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Jafar Panahi: The White Balloon (1995)
I watched this movie totally by surprise. I found out just one hour before that it was scheduled on TV.
It started slowly, maybe too slowly, or maybe too arid for my taste, to become suddenly so cute, and not only cute, everything on the screen was real time, I was following breathlessly the adventures of the little girl, to find out, exactly at the end, that the movie was about something else.
The White Balloon (بادکنک سفيد, Badkonake Sefid), made in 1995 by the Iranian director Jafar Panahi (it was his first feature) - you get the meaning of the title only in the last scene, after all movie was about getting the money, loosing and then trying to recuperate them to buy a goldfish.
This movie is not only deceptive, it has multiple levels of deception.
The author of the screenplay is Abbas Kiarostami, and the way it starts looks like a movie by Kiarostami about children (along with grown-ups not understanding the little ones). Where is the Friend's Home comes to mind immediately, only this is beguiling. Here the grown-ups, as estranged from the natural of children as they can be, are eventually willing to help.
Also the little girl is not faultless either. Actually she is a pest. Anything bad that comes is due to her only. She is greedy, cunning, desperate, spoiled. That's it. While she is cute. Well, because all kids her age are the same way: greedy, cunning, selfish, desperate, spoiled; a pest, while extremely cute. That's why we love them.
Is it then a nice comedy about a cute girl who desires a goldfish? Not exactly, that's just another level of deception.
As it comes to the end, we realize the remarkable wholeness of this movie: a close space, just a couple of streets, a very short period of time, just a couple of hours, just a few personages, confined to this small space and time. Each one (not only the girl) is acting somehow frenetically, and the resulting whole is a crazy small universe, absurdly self-sufficient.
These people are acting totally unaware of each other, except when it happens to collide; in these particular situations they fight or cooperate, or do the both, then again each one is unaware of others' presence.
There is however a boy who's the exception, a stranger (an Afghan immigrant)... but you should watch the movie to get it.
I embedded here the movie. It is a copy with Spanish subtitles. There is also another copy on youTube with English subtitles, you should access it at:
(Jafar Panahi)
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
It started slowly, maybe too slowly, or maybe too arid for my taste, to become suddenly so cute, and not only cute, everything on the screen was real time, I was following breathlessly the adventures of the little girl, to find out, exactly at the end, that the movie was about something else.
The White Balloon (بادکنک سفيد, Badkonake Sefid), made in 1995 by the Iranian director Jafar Panahi (it was his first feature) - you get the meaning of the title only in the last scene, after all movie was about getting the money, loosing and then trying to recuperate them to buy a goldfish.
This movie is not only deceptive, it has multiple levels of deception.
The author of the screenplay is Abbas Kiarostami, and the way it starts looks like a movie by Kiarostami about children (along with grown-ups not understanding the little ones). Where is the Friend's Home comes to mind immediately, only this is beguiling. Here the grown-ups, as estranged from the natural of children as they can be, are eventually willing to help.
Also the little girl is not faultless either. Actually she is a pest. Anything bad that comes is due to her only. She is greedy, cunning, desperate, spoiled. That's it. While she is cute. Well, because all kids her age are the same way: greedy, cunning, selfish, desperate, spoiled; a pest, while extremely cute. That's why we love them.
Is it then a nice comedy about a cute girl who desires a goldfish? Not exactly, that's just another level of deception.
As it comes to the end, we realize the remarkable wholeness of this movie: a close space, just a couple of streets, a very short period of time, just a couple of hours, just a few personages, confined to this small space and time. Each one (not only the girl) is acting somehow frenetically, and the resulting whole is a crazy small universe, absurdly self-sufficient.
These people are acting totally unaware of each other, except when it happens to collide; in these particular situations they fight or cooperate, or do the both, then again each one is unaware of others' presence.
There is however a boy who's the exception, a stranger (an Afghan immigrant)... but you should watch the movie to get it.
I embedded here the movie. It is a copy with Spanish subtitles. There is also another copy on youTube with English subtitles, you should access it at:
(Jafar Panahi)
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami, Panahi
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
12:14 PM
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0 comments
Thursday, November 04, 2010
I Watched Again ABC Africa
I had the chance to watch again today Kiarostami's ABC Africa. I found the movie on Netflix, the only issue was with my Internet connection: it was quite slow today, so there were four or five annoying breaks. This way eighty minutes became around hundred fifty.
The movie is magnificent. Shot with two very small digital cameras, it gives you the impression that use of hand camera was just discovered, and total freedom just began in the world. The small cameras are playing each other and play with the universe, while the universe is playing with them.
It's been Kiarostami's dream from the beginning and it's just come true: the universe and his artwork became a whole. The universe has accepted his artwork, has integrated his artwork, became his artwork.
The universe became fresh and spontaneous. It's dancing around his camera. It's the miracle.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
1:29 PM
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0 comments
Sunday, October 31, 2010
I Have Just Watched Shirin
My friends, I have just watched Kiarostami's Shirin. It's one of my most amazing evenings as a movie watcher. I thought I knew a lot about Kiarostami. I knew nothing! Shirin makes everything clear. The most daring movie I saw, ever.
I will come back to it, soon. It's late, and I have to put order in my thoughts. And, after watching it, you have the fear to talk about it, you fear a sacrilege. You need some time, to pass the moment of the miracle. Some time, to wait till it becomes a memory. Then you can talk, it's your memory.
It's maybe strange (is it?): the only thing I am able to say now, a rhyme I have put on this blog yesterday, in Italian, from a poem by Vincenzo Cardarelli:
l'amore
brucia la vita e fa volare il tempo
brucia la vita e fa volare il tempo
(love burns life and makes time fly)
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
5:32 PM
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2 comments
Friday, October 15, 2010
Kiarostami: Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987)
I am proposing you an experiment. This movie is here without subtitles, and it's spoken in Farsi. You should watch it: your effort will be paid. The rhythm and the tension each image brings in will speak for themselves. Without understanding any dialog, and you'll have the feeling of a thriller.
Well, let me try to give you the summary, though:) Ahmed, an 8 year old boy takes by mistake the notebook of Mohamed, his classmate. Once returned at home Ahmed discovers the error. The thing is that the teacher has warned Mohamed to come next day with the assignments done in the notebook, otherwise he'd be expelled.
Thus Ahmed should go to his friend's house to give him the notebook. Easy to say! His mother doesn't want to hear anything. For her, there are the everyday domestic tasks and after that Ahmed's homework for school, nothing more. Nor the grandfather seems to be more interested in the situation of Ahmed's friend.
Well, Ahmed succeeds in setting out to his friend, but he doesn't know exactly the address, so what follows is his search, asking on the road for directions. He meets lots of adults, only they don't care to give him correct information. Eventually an old door maker befriends Ahmed and, while talking about his craft takes care to show him the house of the friend. Well, the friend isn't home! Ahmed comes back and stays late at night to complete his homework and the one of Mohamed. Next day at school the teacher has nothing more to say.
As simple as that! Where is the Friend's Home? (خانه دوست کجاست؟ - Khane-ye doust kodjast?), created by Kiarostami in 1987, the movie that made the Iranian director known internationally.
Many reviewers emphasized the difference between this movie and Kiarostami's works that followed. For some this movie was superior to all that came after (the latter being, in their opinion, too didactic, or too dry, or too snobbish, or too demonstrative in their artfulness, or all of these). Others praised the movies that followed for their daring openings in the cinematic art, while this film was, in their opinion, too simple, too naive, or maybe too didactic (again) in making its point.
Actually there is a didactic dimension in all movies of Kiarostami: he has a point to make and he makes it. In all his works the plot (if any) is just a support for his thoughts on movie art. Each of his movies is a demonstration about what a movie should be. Each of his movies is actually a meta-movie.
Is Where Is the Friend's Home simple? Yes, while also very subtle. It operates on multiple levels.
The exterior level, a plot of astonishing simplicity: like in the fundamental books of mankind, everything is simple, clear, linear, because truth loves nakedness.
Beyond this exterior level you'll discover the universe depicted by Kiarostami. A reviewer has observed that the journey of the boy follows a circular trajectory: he is advancing in his quest just to arrive in the same place, again and again. It's a close space, claustrophobic, while the boy is trying each time to enlarge the space. And I noted this circular trajectory, this close, claustrophobic space in all his movies; and also the temptation of the main character to enlarge the space. The same is in Taste of Cherry, in The Wind Will Carry Us, even in Ten.
Another observation made by a reviewer: Ahmed finds the friend's house only to find out that the friend is not there: an unfulfilled journey? Actually the fulfillment is just the journey! The journey has the purpose in itself, even if the personage does not know that. Again, the same in Taste of Cherry, or The Wind Will Carry Us, or Ten.
It was noted that no adult could take the boy seriously. I would say, it is more than that. The boy needs to find his friend to give him the notebook: but this is the subject of the movie. Asking the adults to help him is asking the adults to participate in the movie: asking the people from the real world to be also part of the world of the movie. Bringing the real world in the movie! The wish of the artwork to be accepted as reality, to become part of the reality: to make the reality part of the artwork. But this is the crux of Kiarostami's work!
And, like in all the other movies, in the end someone understands and participates: the old door maker here, the old taxidermist in Taste of Cherry, the old physician in The Wind Will Carry Us, the woman who shaved her head in Ten.
No wonder that this movie was followed by two documentaries (And Life Goes On and Through the Olive Trees): Kiarostami came back where he had filmed Where Is My Friend's Home, to talk to the people there, to see the effect of the movie upon them, if any, to understand better the universe there, to be accepted, to make that reality artwork.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
5:02 PM
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Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Kiarostami: 10 on Ten (2004)
It seems to me that Kiarostami has always the impulse to follow up his movies. Once the work is done he feels some irrepressible need to come back to the place, to look at the people there, to meditate on the verisimilitude of what he has done; to compare the reality with his image; and to understand how people there feel about the way they came into picture.
Actually his movies are meditations about the extent to which cinematic art expresses reality, also meditations about how reality reacts to its cinematic representation: movies meditating on themselves.
It is natural for Kiarostami to follow up this process through a new cinematic story about the movie and the reality it tried to represent. And the process goes on: Where is the Friend's Home was followed by And Life Goes On, which in turn was followed by Through the Olive Trees. As his movies always blur fiction and documentary, I would say that to a certain extent a new work of Kiarostami is also a documentary about a previous one. Sometimes the documentary is obvious, some other times it is much more discreet, but always a new movie of Kiarostami echoes a previous one.
And so, after Ten came (not immediately) 10 on Ten, which is the Mother of all Kiarostami's Documentaries: the master takes his whole world of cinema, decomposes this world in its primary components and puts each component before us. Imagine the Master of the Space teaching us about Length, about Width, about Height, and about Time!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Actually his movies are meditations about the extent to which cinematic art expresses reality, also meditations about how reality reacts to its cinematic representation: movies meditating on themselves.
It is natural for Kiarostami to follow up this process through a new cinematic story about the movie and the reality it tried to represent. And the process goes on: Where is the Friend's Home was followed by And Life Goes On, which in turn was followed by Through the Olive Trees. As his movies always blur fiction and documentary, I would say that to a certain extent a new work of Kiarostami is also a documentary about a previous one. Sometimes the documentary is obvious, some other times it is much more discreet, but always a new movie of Kiarostami echoes a previous one.
And so, after Ten came (not immediately) 10 on Ten, which is the Mother of all Kiarostami's Documentaries: the master takes his whole world of cinema, decomposes this world in its primary components and puts each component before us. Imagine the Master of the Space teaching us about Length, about Width, about Height, and about Time!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
10:33 AM
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Kiarostami: Ten (2002)
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: handheld 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.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
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.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
10:45 AM
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Monday, March 29, 2010
Abbas Kiarostami: ABC Africa (2001)
ABC Africa: A stands for Abstinence, B stands for Be faithful, C stands for use Condom only as a last resort. With such a state-driven propaganda no wonder that Uganda faces an impressive number of AIDS cases. And this does not mean only the number of deaths: there are the kids whose parents died from the disease. Then add the kids whose parents died in the civil war. Taking care of these orphans is the mission assumed by UWESCO (Uganda Women Effort to Save Orphans): women willing to adopt these orphans and to give them the chance of a new family, even if this family has many other kids to feed.
Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was asked to take part in a project of UN's IFAD (International Fund for Economic Development): to make a documentary on the plight of Uganda's orphans and the work of UWESCO to rescue them.
And so Kiarostami arrived there with a minimal crew, with two handheld digital video cameras, and with the intent of making quickly a rough version as a first step in creating the documentary.
What resulted was so original that they decided to keep this first version as the definitive production.
I read the reviews to this movie: some of them reproach to Kiarostami that he missed to depict the real situation, that his view was superficial. I think these reviews missed actually the point. Kiarostami has never pretended to explain the universe he was filming. He gave only, in all honesty, a strict account on what he witnessed, nothing more. It's his truth, nothing but his truth, anything more would be hypocrisy.
It is the style from all his movies: letting each new situation encountered to develop on its own. There is something new here, truly revolutionary: using the tiny video camera gives total freedom to anything, spontaneity becomes fully unrestricted. Spontaneity and interactivity: the kids are playing with the camera, inventing games and dances, like all kids from any place on Earth.
And so ABC Africa marks one of the most important moments in the history of cinematography: the handheld video camera throws away any conventions and liberates personages and places from the tyranny of the scenario, and ultimately from the tyranny of the director.
The image recovers its meaning when it faces darkness ... the rainy morning after the painful seven minutes in the dark is a gift to those who have patiently tolerated the dark night until the morning (faraz1729). This scene announces Five!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was asked to take part in a project of UN's IFAD (International Fund for Economic Development): to make a documentary on the plight of Uganda's orphans and the work of UWESCO to rescue them.
And so Kiarostami arrived there with a minimal crew, with two handheld digital video cameras, and with the intent of making quickly a rough version as a first step in creating the documentary.
What resulted was so original that they decided to keep this first version as the definitive production.
I read the reviews to this movie: some of them reproach to Kiarostami that he missed to depict the real situation, that his view was superficial. I think these reviews missed actually the point. Kiarostami has never pretended to explain the universe he was filming. He gave only, in all honesty, a strict account on what he witnessed, nothing more. It's his truth, nothing but his truth, anything more would be hypocrisy.
It is the style from all his movies: letting each new situation encountered to develop on its own. There is something new here, truly revolutionary: using the tiny video camera gives total freedom to anything, spontaneity becomes fully unrestricted. Spontaneity and interactivity: the kids are playing with the camera, inventing games and dances, like all kids from any place on Earth.
And so ABC Africa marks one of the most important moments in the history of cinematography: the handheld video camera throws away any conventions and liberates personages and places from the tyranny of the scenario, and ultimately from the tyranny of the director.
The image recovers its meaning when it faces darkness ... the rainy morning after the painful seven minutes in the dark is a gift to those who have patiently tolerated the dark night until the morning (faraz1729). This scene announces Five!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
10:20 AM
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0 comments
Friday, March 12, 2010
Kiarostami: The Chorus (1982)
I believe the films of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami are extraordinary. Words cannot relate my feelings. I suggest you see his films; and then you will see what I mean.
Hamsarayan (The Chorus), made in 1982, 17 minutes long. It calls in mind all later movies of Kiarostami, and that is because you'll find here some of those cinematic ideas defining what makes him unique.
What's the point in Hamsarayan? That's difficult to grasp, because, like all Kiarostami's works, this movie is simple and complex in the same time. The plot evolves completely by random, changing course each time a new situation is captured. At the beginning of the story Kiarostami seems even not to know the main character. An old man appears suddenly and the focus passes on him. He's walking through some small bazaar examining all kind of stuff, and taking out from his ear the hearing device every now and then. Will the focus move to that noisy guy praising his goods? No, Kiarostami stays the course with the old guy, as he's taking out again his hearing device. And the story goes on, the little girls shouting, while the old man is drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, etc. What's the point?
I think the point is that the plot is deceptive. Actually there is no plot. Kiarostami follows a daily chain of random events with random personages, looking for the meaning, considering that each fact of life should have a meaning. And inviting us to follow the chain of images and to discover their meaning together with him.
This is in all his movies, from his early ones (like this Hamsarayan), up to Ten, and then to Five, where the plot is radically thrown away. Each of his movies is just that: a journey, where facts and personages appear on their own will. A journey Kiarostami makes to encounter facts and personages, and to discover meaning. And we, spectators, are invited to participate to the effort of discovery. The director gives total freedom to the facts and personages, he gives also freedom to us, in our own search for meaning.
Well, we can also find here, in Hamsarayan, an idea that Kiarostami develops in his 10 on Ten: the rapport between sound and image; and possibly many other things.
But you will ask me what's the meaning discovered in this movie? It's the smile of the grandpa in the last image!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
5:19 PM
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0 comments
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Wind Will Carry Us, again
In my small night, ah
the wind has a date with the leaves of the trees
in my small night there is agony of destruction
listen
do you hear the darkness blowing?
I look upon this bliss as a stranger
I am addicted to my despair.
listen do you hear the darkness blowing?
something is passing in the night
the moon is restless and red
and over this rooftop
where crumbling is a constant fear
clouds, like a procession of mourners
seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
a moment
and then nothing
night shudders beyond this window
and the earth winds to a halt
beyond this window
something unknown is watching you and me.
O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will carry us
the wind will carry us.
the wind has a date with the leaves of the trees
in my small night there is agony of destruction
listen
do you hear the darkness blowing?
I look upon this bliss as a stranger
I am addicted to my despair.
listen do you hear the darkness blowing?
something is passing in the night
the moon is restless and red
and over this rooftop
where crumbling is a constant fear
clouds, like a procession of mourners
seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
a moment
and then nothing
night shudders beyond this window
and the earth winds to a halt
beyond this window
something unknown is watching you and me.
O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will carry us
the wind will carry us.
I wrote about an year ago about Bad ma ra khahad bord (The Wind Will Carry Us), made by Kiarostami in 1999.
As I recognized, within the movie, verses from Iranian modern poets (as well as from Omar Khayyám), I copied them here.
It is a movie on multiple levels of meaning, and one of them is poetry. The title of the movie is the title of a famous poem created by Forough Farrokhzad.
It is more than inter-textuality here: it's about a trans-generic flow of sensibility. The visual imagery of Kiarostami's movies, the word imagery of modern Iranian poets come from the same source and are fed by the same well.
I started with the English version of the poem by Forough Farrokhzad, I will end with the French version, of a great beauty, and I'll come soon with my thoughts about Ten, another well-known movie of Kiarostami. I found also Ten on youTube. It's a great joy. Augmented by my finding of 10 on Ten on youTube!
Neshami
Near the tree,
Is a garden-line greener than God's dream
Where love is bluer than the feathers of honesty.
Near the tree,
Is a garden-line greener than God's dream
Where love is bluer than the feathers of honesty.
The Gift
I speak of the end of night
I speak
of the end of darkness
And of the end of night.
O kind one,
If you come to my home,
Bring me a light
And a nook
From which I may watch the crowding of the glad lane.
I speak of the end of night
I speak
of the end of darkness
And of the end of night.
O kind one,
If you come to my home,
Bring me a light
And a nook
From which I may watch the crowding of the glad lane.
They promise of houries in heaven
But I would say wine is better
Take the present to the promises
A drum sounds melodious from apart
But I would say wine is better
Take the present to the promises
A drum sounds melodious from apart
Dans ma nuit, si brève, hélas
Le vent a rendez-vous avec les feuilles.
Ma nuit si brève est remplie de l'angoisse dévastatrice
Ecoute! Entends-tu le souffle des ténèbres?
De ce bonheur, je me sens étranger.
Au désespoir je suis accoutumée.
Ecoute! Entends-tu le souffle des ténèbres?
Là, dans la nuit, quelque chose se passe
La lune est rouge et angoissée.
Et accrochés à ce toit
Qui risque de s'effondrer à tout moment,
Les nuages, comme une foule de pleureuses,
Attendent l'accouchement de la pluie,
Un instant, et puis rien.
Derrière cette fenêtre,
C'est la nuit qui tremble
Et c'est la terre qui s'arrête de tourner.
Derrière cette fenêtre, un inconnu s'inquiète
pour moi et toi.
Toi, toute verdoyante,
Pose tes mains - ces souvenirs ardents -
Sur mes mains amoureuses
Et confie tes lèvres, repues de la chaleur de la vie,
Aux caresses de mes lèvres amoureuses
Le vent nous emportera!
Le vent nous emportera!
Le vent a rendez-vous avec les feuilles.
Ma nuit si brève est remplie de l'angoisse dévastatrice
Ecoute! Entends-tu le souffle des ténèbres?
De ce bonheur, je me sens étranger.
Au désespoir je suis accoutumée.
Ecoute! Entends-tu le souffle des ténèbres?
Là, dans la nuit, quelque chose se passe
La lune est rouge et angoissée.
Et accrochés à ce toit
Qui risque de s'effondrer à tout moment,
Les nuages, comme une foule de pleureuses,
Attendent l'accouchement de la pluie,
Un instant, et puis rien.
Derrière cette fenêtre,
C'est la nuit qui tremble
Et c'est la terre qui s'arrête de tourner.
Derrière cette fenêtre, un inconnu s'inquiète
pour moi et toi.
Toi, toute verdoyante,
Pose tes mains - ces souvenirs ardents -
Sur mes mains amoureuses
Et confie tes lèvres, repues de la chaleur de la vie,
Aux caresses de mes lèvres amoureuses
Le vent nous emportera!
Le vent nous emportera!
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
(Forough Farrokhzād)
Labels: Forough Farrokhzad, Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami, The Wind Will Carry Us
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
1:13 PM
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Breaktime, the Second Movie of Kiarostami (1972)
زنگ تفریح - Zang-e Tafrih (Breaktime, Recess), the second movie of Kiarostami, made in 1972. It calls in my mind some of the very first movies of Brakhage, especially The Way to Shadow Garden. In both cases, a minimalistic gem, nothing explained, a personage without history, without motivation, with the unique role of putting in value a disconcerting universe.
Is it the admirable end of Breaktime a negative stasis (like in the movie of Brakhage)? Well, it is somehow a way to the Gardens of Shadow, too, though I think it is, much more, something else: it is an end refusing to be the end (as it is no beginning, also). This fourteen minutes movie dares to eliminate the story from its structure! It is a shame that Breaktime passed unobserved, because it was marking a new age in the history of cinema.
Says Abbas Kiarostami, you may not believe it but my ideal film is my second film, Breaktime: this film is way ahead of Taste of Cherry in terms of form, audacity, avoidance of story-telling, and indeterminate ending.
Kurosawa: I believe the films of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami are extraordinary. Words cannot relate my feelings. I suggest you see his films; and then you will see what I mean.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Is it the admirable end of Breaktime a negative stasis (like in the movie of Brakhage)? Well, it is somehow a way to the Gardens of Shadow, too, though I think it is, much more, something else: it is an end refusing to be the end (as it is no beginning, also). This fourteen minutes movie dares to eliminate the story from its structure! It is a shame that Breaktime passed unobserved, because it was marking a new age in the history of cinema.
Says Abbas Kiarostami, you may not believe it but my ideal film is my second film, Breaktime: this film is way ahead of Taste of Cherry in terms of form, audacity, avoidance of story-telling, and indeterminate ending.
Kurosawa: I believe the films of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami are extraordinary. Words cannot relate my feelings. I suggest you see his films; and then you will see what I mean.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
4:01 PM
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Sunday, March 07, 2010
The First Movie of Kiarostami: Bread & Alley (1970)
Seyrouss Hassanpour, who plays the kidنان و کوچه - Nan va Koutcheh (Bread & Alley), the first movie made by Kiarostami.
It was 1970, Kiarostami was leading the film department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran.
Bread & Alley is 10 minutes long: a kid is going home carrying a loaf of bread. It's somewhere in the outskirts of the city, streets are narrow, long and empty. A dog starts barking and the kid is scared. What to do? Nobody's on the street. An old man suddenly appears and the kid tries to follow him, only the man stops shortly in front of his home, so the boy is again alone. He has the inspiration to throw a piece of bread to the dog. This completely changes the situation. The dog becomes friendly and follows cheerfully the boy. The boy arrives at home, the dog tries to follow his new friend inside, the boy's mother doesn't let him and shuts violently the gate; the dog gets again hostile.
Ten minutes only, and a whole bunch of universes: the universe of narrow, long, empty streets, potentially oppressive, the universe of genuine fear, the universe of feelings of the animal: hostility, joy, disappointment.
Says Kiarostami, Bread & Alley was my first experience in cinema and I must say a very difficult one. I had to work with a very young child, a dog, and an unprofessional crew except for the cinematographer, who was nagging and complaining all the time. Well, the cinematographer, in a sense, was right because I did not follow the conventions of film making that he had become accustomed to.
A road within a spacial context rather arid, and situations emerging suddenly and developing on their own: from this first movie Kiarostami knew that the extraordinary is hidden in the banality of everyday; he knew that an artist is an observer, capturing any situation and letting it to develop on its own. Watch this first movie ten minutes long, watch Taste of Cherry, watch Ten: the same great artistic concept.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
4:39 AM
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Friday, March 05, 2010
Roads of Kiarostami
I think Kiarostami is, among contemporary filmmakers, the closest to my way of perceiving the world, my way of looking for the answers, my sensibility. Among today's creators, his ways in art interest me the most. A recurrent motive in his movies is the road: a car running along roads in arid landscapes, a solitary tree here and there, while the story goes toward green valleys, greener than Almighty's dreams. His movies are difficult, and that's because each of his movies is just a pretext, for the meta-movie: Kiarostami makes them just to see their relevance within reality. Each of his movies is, beyond the plot, a documentary, about the relevance of the plot; a discussion, a meditation, a search for answers. That's maybe why roads are so important in the economy of Kiarostami's movies: a documentary implies the road, often not knowing where it's going.
And sometimes the master tries some conclusions, like in this Roads of Kiarostami, made in 2006.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
3:39 PM
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Sunday, November 29, 2009
Kiarostami: Taste of Cherry (1997)
Ta'm e guilass (Taste of Cherry), made by Abbas Kiarostami in 1997.
It happened that I had already seen Ten, made by Kiarostami in 2002, and I was struck by the resemblance of approach in the two movies. As I was now watching Taste of Cherry, dialogues from Ten were coming to my mind. In both movies a driver is running the car through the streets of Tehran (or on shabby routes around Tehran) and approaches various people. The reactions of those people are similar in both movies. It is like the driver is the only character played by a professional, all others are just common people who seem totally unaware that they are filmed.
There is a subject here in Taste of Cherry (I would rather not deconspire it, to not frustrate you of the pleasure of discovery), only I believe the subject is more like a pretext, for studying the reactions of those common people.
I believe that Kiarostami is actually interested in the reaction of common people confronted with the convention of the movie. There is a subject, yes: it is a convention proposed by the creator of the movie, like any filmic subject. It is not the reality, it is a convention, that presents itself as reality. However, it is a convention, not reality. How are common people reacting to this convention? Are they considering it as normal, as belonging to their universe?
Or, can these common people become part of the artistic universe? They belong to our, real, world. The main character (the driver) provokes them. They can enter the illusory world of the movie; they can refuse the illusion.
Anyway, either they accept the convention, or they refuse, it is a moment of contact between two worlds: the real world, the illusory world of the movie (pretending to be the real world itself). What is the relation between the two worlds? What is the relation between object and image? A question that has tortured so many artists in the twentieth century, and I believe this is also the question that Kiarostami is trying to find the answer.
The ending of the movie can be read in various ways. I believe that the sense of it is, hey, guys, a movie is just a movie, it is convention claiming to be reality, but it remains convention.
I know, of course, that I could be wrong :) I also believe that Ten developed Taste of Cherry in a more radical way.
(I'm in the Mood for Kiarostami)
Labels: Iranian Film and Poetry, Kiarostami
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
7:52 PM
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