Synopsis
A collection of 24 short four-and-a-half minutes films inspired by still images, including paintings and photographs. An experimental project made by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in the last three years of his life.
2017 Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
A collection of 24 short four-and-a-half minutes films inspired by still images, including paintings and photographs. An experimental project made by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in the last three years of his life.
The art form stripped down to its most necessary functions: it's fitting that Abbas Kiarostami's final film, 24 Frames -- a stone cold masterpiece of the highest order and one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 21st century so far -- should be about extending the still image beyond its confines and exploring its elastic temporality through a cinematic perspective or, in other words, simultaneously resurrecting the dead and giving life to the merely "existent." Kiarostami's films, too, and this one in particular -- a minimal and meditative love letter to the world he'd soon be leaving behind and the landscapes, various creatures, and artistic mediums that inhabit it -- will allow the late, great Iranian master to become…
Abbas Kiarostami, the great Iranian postmodernist who died last summer at the age of 76, used to say that he preferred the kind of movies that put their audience to sleep. “Some films have made me doze off in the theater,” he would explain, “but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for for weeks.” So while I passed out (and passed out hard) roughly 15 minutes into “24 Frames,” the fascinating, posthumously completed non-narrative project that will serve as Kiarostami’s final farewell, I suspect that he wouldn’t take my unconsciousness as a criticism or a show of disrespect.
On the contrary, I…
69/100
A.V. Club review. Had I seen this with zero foreknowledge (minus the initial, proof-of-concept frame using "The Hunters in the Snow"), odds are I would have moderately enjoyed it at face value, as Kiarostami's version of something like Benning's 13 Lakes (which I did in fact moderately enjoy). Each shot is beautifully composed, and while I might have marveled at how frequently animals seem to spontaneously provide a mini-narrative, or noticed that some of their movements don't look entirely natural, the degree of manipulation involved almost certainly would not have occurred to me. Once you know what's going on, though—and Kiarostami (or someone, anyway) makes a point of telling you up front—elements that would otherwise have been merely pleasing…
89
A photo-chemical reversal. The beginning of Abbas Kiarostami's final film, depicting 'The Hunters in the Snow' from 1565, is a birth of the universe moment from which all of cinema bellowed out, much like the smoke stacks given life as the painting begins to be (selectively) animated. Each image is a complete existence, contextualized by sound and living things passing in and out of frame, a reminder of what is beyond and what is visible. They're encased in time - frozen, forever the same, and yet they move with startling unpredictability. Each 'frame' is constructed out of many, many individual frames, but their fixed nature doesn't cancel a potent sense of replication - a lack of capture giving way…
“I absolutely don’t like the films in which the filmmakers take their viewers hostage and provoke them. I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks. Those are the kind of films I like.”
I'm a big fan of things that are stripped down, made as sparse as possible without sacrificing meaning. I almost solely prepare my coffee in the pourover style. To me, it's the "purest" or the simplest form of making coffee, without losing any taste or compromising the character of the coffee. Distilled down to it's purest form.
24 Frames is that for cinema. Cinema that is distilled down to it's purest, simplest form. You don't need words, or a plot, or even characters. Movement of images is what will suffice. It's beautiful, and heartbreaking in several instances. And constantly inquisitive. I am so happy that I watched it, and I will be happy to watch it again, or have it play in the background, or fall asleep to it.
Also I should note, after reading Bilge Ebiri's Twitter thread about his cat, I was looking forward to watching this with mine. He enjoyed it
Missed the first 8 frames or so...
that being said, the street frame with the Eiffel and the woman singing Les Feuilles Mortes is one of the best things I’ve ever seen
this movie is a meditation for the soul
thank you Abbas Kiarostami for this masterpiece
Rest in peace
The kind of film you'd see at an art exhibition - slow, beautiful and you'll be thinking about it later. Perhaps it's not necessary to see all of it, but its imagery is beautiful.
Abbas Kiarostami passed away nearly three years ago and the world is still grieving; admittedly, when he passed away, I really didn’t know anything about his movies, just the fact that he was one of the most beloved figures in the medium. I felt sad and knew his passing was a tragedy, but I really couldn’t connect alongside my fellow Cinephiles mourning his loss. Fast forward those three years and I’ve (only... shamefully) seen three of his works and each of those films has impacted me in such a way that I wished I watched Kiarostami early on: he’s one of the greatest filmmakers I’ve ever encountered and I can’t believe it took me this long to finally experience him.…
Going to bed and leaving this on as ambience AND logging it anyway because fuck your rules.
I will simply invert Rodin’s remark (he was, in fact, speaking of Muybridge’s work) to read thus: “It is the photograph which is truthful, and the artist who lies, for in reality time does stop.”
—Hollis Frampton
Josh 1,205 films
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