Close-Up
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Studio: Criterion
Year: 1990
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 Persian
Subtitles: English
MSRP:$ 39.95
Release Date: June 22, 2010
Review Date: May 30, 2010
The Film
3.5/5
A kind of Iranian variation on Six Degrees of Separation, Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up takes its basic impersonation plot and uses it as the framework for the trial of the man perpetrating the fraud. What’s more, instead of professional actors playing the accused and his victims, the real-life people involved in the crime are reenacting what occurred in a hybrid kind of realistic docudrama that’s alternately creepy and mesmerizing. The director’s tone is rather laid back and definitely non-hyperbolic; still, the people play themselves with conviction, and the story as presented here is just as strange as the true-life one that formed the basis of the strange-but-true saga.
Quite innocently at first, Iranian ne’er-do-well Hossein Sabzian pretends to be one of Iran’s foremost film directors Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Taking in the family of Abolfazi Ahankhah, he manages to extort 1,900 tomans from them plus free meals and a place to stay while perpetrating his hoax that he’s going to use the family’s palatial home as the setting for his next film with the two sons of the family being cast in major roles in his movie. After catching the con artist in a couple of easily proven lies, older son Mehrdad tips off a local tabloid reporter Hassan Farazmand about the fraud, and he brings the police to arrest Hossein who is then put on trial and asked to explain himself.
The film has been aptly titled by writer-director Abbas Kiarostami since he concentrates on close-ups during the movie, especially during the lengthy trial sequences. We're also privy to the close up scrutiny that the camera inflicts on the participants as they attempt to explain their motivations and gullibility during the trial sequence. The director has divided the backstory into several pieces, however, and these interrupt the court proceedings on a regular basis as we see pictures to go with the lengthy testimony. The movie is talky, but luckily those flashbacks do vary the excessive use of close-ups by giving us other things to view and ponder. Kiarostami has also filmed the trial quite differently from the remainder of the movie giving it a very harsh, individualistic look that switches up the visuals of the film to give it even more variety. He does have some odd ideas about the minutia he chooses to focus on (an aerosol can, a cab driver, the ill-prepared reporter scurrying around for a tape recorder) all of which seem trivial, time consuming, and focus-pulling.
Since the actors are playing movie versions of their own personalities, perhaps the word “performance” isn’t quite apt, but Hossein Sabzian does emerge as a somewhat pitiable character in the pivotal central part. As the calm, generous, and loving father, Abolfazi Ahankhah makes for a wonderful screen presence. Real-life director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (who, along with this film’s Abbas Kiarostami, constitutes Iran’s two most celebrated helmers) makes a cameo appearance at the film’s conclusion that’s full of high spirits and good cheer.
Video Quality
3.5/5
The film is framed at 1.33:1 and is slightly windowboxed in Criterion’s usual style for Academy ratio DVDs. The courtroom scenes are intentionally blown out with fuzzy focus and drab, flat color. Elsewhere, color (with nicely delineated flesh tones) and sharpness are quite exemplary though there are black and white scratches which crop up occasionally throughout the movie and some stray hairs, too. The white subtitles are very easy to read. The film has been divided into 14 chapters.
Audio Quality
3/5
The Dolby Digital 1.0 audio track likely delivers the sound as recorded, but there are volume discrepancies occasionally (this does not refer to the film’s most notorious sequence where the sound truck has trouble picking up the speaking through the lapel mics; bonus features reveal this was done deliberately), and the use of ADR on occasion is very noticeable. However, audio artifacts like hiss, pops, and flutter are not a problem.
Special Features
4/5
Each disc in the two-disc set contains bonus materials.
The audio commentary by Kiarostami experts Jonathan Rosenbaum and Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa is not on the whole very interesting. They make comments on various aspects of the film as being significant or important without explaining why they are and tend to give him the benefit of the doubt in questionable directorial choices instead of criticizing the poor as well as celebrating the good. There are also some gaps when neither commentator has anything to say, but for a film this brief, there shouldn’t have been a problem with content for their commentary.
The Traveler is Abbas Kiarostami’s 1974 black and white film which he considers his first significant feature. This 73 ¼-minute story of an Iranian lad who’ll do just about anything to attend a soccer match in Tehran even though his family doesn’t have the money to get him there is in many ways a more interesting film than Close-Up¸ a kind of Iranian take on The 400 Blows. It’s presented in 1.33:1. The video and audio quality of The Traveler is very, very good.
Disc Two contains the following selections:
“Close-Up: Long Shot” is a documentary focusing on Hossein Sabzian, his family, and neighborhood acquaintances some six years after the release of Close-Up. Sad and somewhat depressing after the upbeat conclusion of the feature film, this portrait of one of life’s losers runs 43 ¾ minutes in 4:3.
An interview with Abbas Kiarostami finds the director discussing the difficulties and rewards of making Close-Up. This 2009 interview is presented in anamorphic widescreen and runs for 27 ½ minutes.
“A Walk with Kiarostami” is a 2001 documentary made by filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami who spent two days with the filmmaker talking everything from water, flowers, and roads to poetry, painting, and photography. It runs 31 ½ minutes and is in anamorphic widescreen.
The enclosed 14-page booklet features a cast and crew list, some color stills from the movie, and an essay about the film and its subjects by critic Godfrey Cheshire.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up has been hailed by many as his best film. I actually prefer the other film in this notable package: the 1974 film The Traveler. Either way, the director’s admirers will find much to like with this release which celebrates his unique national perspective.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
