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…

"...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…

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…

The farther I go with Kiarostami the more I realize it's better to avoid hearing any information about the story going in. Theoretically that's true about anything but especially for him. Whatever verbal synopsis or review you hear or read the film just won't match it. This was a really problem for me initially since my intro to Kiarostami were things like Mark Cousin's Story of Film which gave away a fair amount of story details.

And you may want to avoid reading too many reviews beforehand anyways because frankly I don't know how much they'll help you gauge whether a particular Kiarostami film is good or not. With any given film you kinda just have to trust that he'll…

Kiarostami never fails to astonish; somehow, someway, there's always some twisting of the mind, some punch to the gut, and Kiarostami was the absolute master of doing this (not to mention, no one else ends films like this guy could). Putting his characters into nothing more than seemingly simple conversations (often in moving vehicles), each one interluded by essential moments of silence, never knowing where any of it's leading until the rug is pulled out from under us and we're left wondering how he pulled it off. Like Someone in Love may not be the most consistently compelling of Kiarostami's films, but it still packs those moments of awe: frames of complex cinematography, subtle scenes of intimacy, small gestures of…

its so weird that at first the calm nature of the film, the naturalistic dialogue of the film, lack of conflict and slick visual look is what i would've expected from tokyo story but ultimately didn't deliver. as the movie went on though, it turned into something else entirely. the film, both through the medium and story, shows people who put up a false facade of themselves to lie to one another. the people may be nice to one another but they constantly lie or pretend to be in able to hide their own selfish gains. even the film presents itself through the medium itself, with mirrors showing the true form of the characters (see: the head of Akiko hunching…