"...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…

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…

Flawless. Utter mastery; Kiarostami may have made better films, but none quite as clean, none quite as perfect. Only a master formalist could make character dynamics feel like watching a game of chess, furthermore in a film where everyone is seeing reflections, and no one is seeing reality. When Old Man says "Don't worry, it'll all work out - What will be, will be," of course the whole circumstance falls apart, precisely because it does work out, and what "will be" happens. It's not emotional manipulation, it's mechanical law. Frankly, maybe the most perfectly constructed film - and fascinating in how it seems to only establish character, situational and thematic dynamics and merely let those run to an inevitable conclusion,…

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 girl was screaming for help. Let me out! Let me out! Akiko felt like a tourist in her own city, out…

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…

This is cinema stripped bare of itself to reveal a soul shut tight inside a cage of bones. Bones without flesh, without meat for viewers to chew on. The whole thing is an abstraction, an illusion like how the concept of love is nothing but a trick of the mind, the heart. A movie without beginning or end - first heard before seen - it is something that just happened, first accidentally and then abruptly, like a loud bang that came out of nowhere, leaving one unsettled, startled and disquieted. Throughout 1h45min, we watch people being boxed inside unreachable spaces where the outside world doesn’t seem to be able to get through to them. They don’t open themselves up to…