Written, Directed & Edited by Abbas Kiarostami
Cinematography by Ali Reza Zarrindast
To the casual viewer, Close-Up may not seem to be much besides a crudely shot docu-drama about an impostor impersonating famous filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his subsequent arrest and trial (as it seemed to me the first time I saw it at a college screening). Depending on one's level of tolerance - or the lack of it - the film could either put one to sleep, or cause a riot (the screening I mentioned was greeted with boos and catcalls).
But if one took the trouble to sit through the film not once, but twice or thrice, one begins to see just how deeply sophisticated and richly textured the film is. It reveals its beauty at its own pace, like a flower blooming, regardless of whether or not you have the time for it. And the more you watch it, the more you realise that everything in the movie, even its apparent crudity, has been put there by its director Kiarostami for a reason.
The central character in Close-Up is Hossein Sabzian, facing trial for posing as Makhmalbaf to the Ahankhahs, a middle-class household, and even promising to cast them in his next picture, which he intends to shoot at their home.
The heart of the film is the trial, where Sabzian, a divorcee and former employee at a print shop, admits to his guilt. He goes on to speak of his love for the arts when he was a youth, his indebtedness towards Makhmalbaf's films for his portrayal of the suffering of the underdog, his desire to work in films which he had not the means to pursue, and how, when he was mistaken for the famous director by a member of the Ahankhahs, he seized the chance to play a part he had always wanted to.
The picture that emerges is that of a character which may turn out to be one of the most enigmatic in all of cinema, because Hossein Sabzian is not your everyday criminal (What kind of con men would quote Tolstoy during a trial?). As he admits, this is the first time he has ever committed a crime. Like the title character in Monsieur Verdoux, he turns to crime not for personal gain, but to assuage the futility and monotony of his former existence.
Kiarostami, who until then had been making short and feature length films for children (like the charming Where is the Friend's Home?), was intrigued by the story which he first encountered in a magazine piece. So, the story goes (As Kiarostami says), he obtained permission to film Sabzian's trial, recorded separate interviews with the principal (and a few not important but still relevant) characters in the episode, and even staged a few scenes of the encounter between Sabzian and the Ahankhahs, played by the same people.
Kiarostami also staged a prologue, where a journalist and two policemen are on their way to nab the impostor in a taxi, and a trademark Kiarostami sequence of a lengthy conversation in a cab follows. He finally wrapped up the film with a happy ending by having Makhmalbaf actually meet Sabzian upon his release from prison, and effect a reconciliation with the Ahankhahs.
Just when you thought that was all there is to the film, think again. By re-enacting several major episodes with the same cast and intercutting them in between scenes of the trial, Kiarostami blurs the line between truth and artifice. The occasional peeping microphone, the glaringly visible camera in the side window of a car and the frequent addresses of the interviewees to the director himself may seem like a cinema verite-inspired approach, but in fact in a film that is essentially about deception and camouflage, Kiarostami too seems to have joined the game, constantly deceiving us and forcing us to question the legitimacy of what we take as truth.
The film was revelatory to me in another way. Sabzian, to me, personifies the last vestiges of a civilization in which culture and the arts truly belonged to the people, unlike our present times, where philistinism is the order of the day, and anything that has to do with art is condemned 'elitist' or relegated to museums.
Cinematography by Ali Reza Zarrindast
To the casual viewer, Close-Up may not seem to be much besides a crudely shot docu-drama about an impostor impersonating famous filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his subsequent arrest and trial (as it seemed to me the first time I saw it at a college screening). Depending on one's level of tolerance - or the lack of it - the film could either put one to sleep, or cause a riot (the screening I mentioned was greeted with boos and catcalls).
But if one took the trouble to sit through the film not once, but twice or thrice, one begins to see just how deeply sophisticated and richly textured the film is. It reveals its beauty at its own pace, like a flower blooming, regardless of whether or not you have the time for it. And the more you watch it, the more you realise that everything in the movie, even its apparent crudity, has been put there by its director Kiarostami for a reason.
The central character in Close-Up is Hossein Sabzian, facing trial for posing as Makhmalbaf to the Ahankhahs, a middle-class household, and even promising to cast them in his next picture, which he intends to shoot at their home.
The heart of the film is the trial, where Sabzian, a divorcee and former employee at a print shop, admits to his guilt. He goes on to speak of his love for the arts when he was a youth, his indebtedness towards Makhmalbaf's films for his portrayal of the suffering of the underdog, his desire to work in films which he had not the means to pursue, and how, when he was mistaken for the famous director by a member of the Ahankhahs, he seized the chance to play a part he had always wanted to.
The picture that emerges is that of a character which may turn out to be one of the most enigmatic in all of cinema, because Hossein Sabzian is not your everyday criminal (What kind of con men would quote Tolstoy during a trial?). As he admits, this is the first time he has ever committed a crime. Like the title character in Monsieur Verdoux, he turns to crime not for personal gain, but to assuage the futility and monotony of his former existence.
Kiarostami, who until then had been making short and feature length films for children (like the charming Where is the Friend's Home?), was intrigued by the story which he first encountered in a magazine piece. So, the story goes (As Kiarostami says), he obtained permission to film Sabzian's trial, recorded separate interviews with the principal (and a few not important but still relevant) characters in the episode, and even staged a few scenes of the encounter between Sabzian and the Ahankhahs, played by the same people.
Kiarostami also staged a prologue, where a journalist and two policemen are on their way to nab the impostor in a taxi, and a trademark Kiarostami sequence of a lengthy conversation in a cab follows. He finally wrapped up the film with a happy ending by having Makhmalbaf actually meet Sabzian upon his release from prison, and effect a reconciliation with the Ahankhahs.
Just when you thought that was all there is to the film, think again. By re-enacting several major episodes with the same cast and intercutting them in between scenes of the trial, Kiarostami blurs the line between truth and artifice. The occasional peeping microphone, the glaringly visible camera in the side window of a car and the frequent addresses of the interviewees to the director himself may seem like a cinema verite-inspired approach, but in fact in a film that is essentially about deception and camouflage, Kiarostami too seems to have joined the game, constantly deceiving us and forcing us to question the legitimacy of what we take as truth.
The film was revelatory to me in another way. Sabzian, to me, personifies the last vestiges of a civilization in which culture and the arts truly belonged to the people, unlike our present times, where philistinism is the order of the day, and anything that has to do with art is condemned 'elitist' or relegated to museums.
