Abbas Kiarostami’s latest film continues to explore the themes and obsessions that have characterised the filmmaker’s career. Continuing to work outside his native Iran - this time in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo - Kiarostami once again delves into the slippery subject of truth and identity in this languid and elusive chamber piece.

Like Someone in Love is a simple film on the surface - a story about a young sociology student and part-time escort, Akiko, who develops a relationship with a retired professor over a two-day period - yet dig beyond the veneer and the film reveals its complex riches. In many ways it is a companion piece to Kiarostami’s last film, Certified Copy, but one I found far…

Not that Kiarostami's ever been a "Hello, here is your narrative" kind of guy, but Like Someone In Love's especially perverse in terms of foregrounding non-essential narrative information. Phones ring and lead to useless, annoying conversations; as a taxi circles a train station plaza so Akiko (Rin Takanashi) can catch a glimpse of her grandmother, a van pulls into the POV shot and inches along with maddening consistency, persistently blocking a view of the old lady. The opening sequence is just shot-countershot, but you spend the whole first shot trying to figure out who's speaking, only gradually determining that the voice you're hearing isn't attached to anyone you see but someone behind the camera, or maybe somewhere else entirely. Mise-en-scene…

Abbas Kiarostami continues his global escapades away from his native Iran with Like Someone in Love, an elusive piece of contemplative cinema set in Tokyo that serves as a companion film to the excellent Certified Copy. The auteur brings back the familiar themes of alienation, the feeling of loneliness in a big city, the clever mistaken identity schtick from his previous effort, and of course ambiguity. I’m highly impressed with the direction Kiarostami is taking with these non-Iranian films of his, all of which happen to share a thematic quality that is playfully light-hearted yet at the same time quite beguiling and dark. His latest is a compelling addition to this new phase of his illustrious career.

Rin Takanashi plays…

Whether it's in a restaurant, in a taxi, in the professor's Volvo, or as a reflection on a television screen, Akiko is always shown behind a glass. It almost looks like she was imprisoned, locked in her own transparent cage, built by the collective effort of her guilt and shame for being a student prostitute.

Inside the taxi, Akiko looked out of the window and saw neon signs passing by her, from the outside, the lights were reflected onto her face as if they're closely watching her too. No dialogue in this particular scene, but you can tell the prostitute was screaming for help. Let me out! Let me out! Akiko felt like a tourist in her own city, out…

"...but violence in society interests me."

Probably Kiarostami's best and most focused movie. Here's another one to chalk up to digital cinema: because of the sharpness and shallower depth of field of most digital cameras, digital captures reflections much better than 35mm. (see also: Road to Nowhere, Jersey Boys). And there are reflections galore in this movie, identities constantly shifting and on the verge of collapsing on one another. Kiarostami's venture into urban spaces also lapses into his car sequences, and reflections feature much more prominently and more effectively than in Certified Copy. Reflections are everywhere, the city-scapes of Tokyo are inescapable, figuring here almost expressionistically; IMO two car sequences, the first being the taxi one, the second being the…

Kiarostami once said that men are "work-oriented" and women are "affection-oriented." He also insisted that every woman must be married. With the thankfully purely studious old man and the morally loose young prostitute, this film perfectly exhibits Kiarostami's disappointing chauvinism and sexism. The call girl even makes a joke: "What's the similarity between a book and a woman?" She giggles while not giving an answer, saying that it is too lewd. In short, Kiarostami thinks books and women have nothing intellectually similar, only a shared physical lewdness. I'm guessing the joke was about how girls can be opened whenever one wants, like books, or something even worse. That's what the millipede joke was about too. There's also the observation that…

the downbeat take on love portrayed by kiarostami in this movie can sometimes be a bit too scary or stagnating, especially if you consider the tone in which it ends, turning it into a movie with no end or beginning, but simply a passage through two days of a conflict that has been and will run for much longer. the whole concept of delving into the movie not to know what happens, but to temporarily follow the lives of these characters and then leave without a satisfying resolution might also quite be what love really is once it's over, when it becomes one of its many derivatives. hate, contempt, respect, friendship, bitterness, you call it.

i love the genuine simplicity…

"Whatever will be will be."

We hear some noise coming from a night bar. The clinking of the glasses, the intermingled voices, the pleasant and relaxing music. Later on, we can already see the bar from the inside, but we also hear the voice of a girl, off-screen, telling someone that she's not lying. This goes on for almost a minute of footage until a reverse shot shows us that girl, who's actually using her cellphone, talking with who will we later learn is her boyfriend. But we'll learn that later on. With only the first three steps mentioned above, we can already guess the intention of this film, which will be that of revealing information slowly, subverting our expectations;…