100/100

Cinema, even within its immaculate bursts of truth, is a realm of masks and modest deceit. The mystical aura of the screen is the equivalent of a magician's assistant, cluttering and distracting the audience from the formation of the tapestry of the entire experience. Close-up, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, is a stirring deconstruction of cinema and its various influences on society and its audience. With natural and affecting "performances", a faultless sense of editing, and a monstrously quintessential view on the power of moving images; Close-up is simply one of the greatest films ever made (maybe even THE greatest) and one of most extraordinary viewing experiences that I've ever had.

For a film to weave fact and fiction so…

PTAbro's World Tour Stop 16: Iran

This is the story of a liar. An earnest man who lies for the sake of art. A fabricator of reality, in order to control the immediate, the susceptible, the observers. One man who takes a situation he is presented with, twists the facts, and presents them as truth. He manufactures a role, and draws others into the world he is creating; taking normal people and turning them into participants in a thought experiment to see how much they will believe, how far can he take it before it all falls apart. Suspicions arise, but he has a gift for soothing the wary. He creates a back-story, seemingly on a whim, and strengthens his…

As Close-Up proceeded, I immediately thought of Color Me Kubrick, another true story about someone impersonating a famous, but somewhat reclusive director. While Color Me Kubrick was an amusing film, made especially absurd by John Malkovich’s portrayal, it wasn't really anything to write home about. One thing that did strike me with Close-Up was the opening credits, where everyone was listed as playing ‘themselves’. Now that’s novel. Is this a prank?

Those thoughts quickly vanished as I began to get sucked deeper and deeper into this beguilingly simple re-enacted quasi documentary. As I was watching, I simply couldn't rationalize why it captivated me so. Absent was dramatic tension, traditional plot beats, court room emotional histrionics, anger, or tears. Just calm,…

The act of watching films is almost laughable in its strangeness. For a couple of hours we believe that the people onscreen actually exist, and their stories have the power to move us in ways that stories in real life cannot.

Close-Up is about a man who impersonates a director he admires. He carries out in real life the same conceit that films do, except this time nobody knows subconsciously that he's just pretending. There was never a moment when I was sure that I was watching a documentary or a film.

The film eschews all traditional methods of storytelling to focus almost exclusively on brilliant, self-aware dialogue. At the beginning of the film, the impersonator, Hossain Sabzian, asks the…

فیلمی درباره سینما... اگر در «پنجره پشتی» هیچکاک فیلم به میانجی چشم‌چرانی شخصیت است که پیش می‌رود اینجا موضوع پیش رفتن فیلم نیست. موضوع به چالش کشیدن پلات است و واقعیتی که سینما بازنمایی می‌کند. درگیری فیلم با واقعیت در چند سطح متفاوت پیش می‌رود. در سطح نمادین که درواقع با جایگاه کارگردان با فیگور کارگردان در عرصه نمادین و کارکردهای شهرت مواجهیم. درواقع با محصول سینما. با سینمای پس از وقوع. با تاثیر فیلم بعد از به نمایش درآمدنش.
در سطحی دیگر ما با چالش «حقیقت/واقعیت» روبرویمم و درگیری همیشگی استاد با مفهوم واقعیت سینمایی. واقعیت سینمایی چیست؟ حقیقت کدام است؟‌حقیقت آن چیزی است که سینما درست در لحظه‌ای که فکر می‌کند به چنگش آورده، از جنگ دوربین گریخته…