ten ( 2002 film )
ten. 2002. france / iran. directed by abbas kiarostami. © mk2
ten. 2002. france / iran. written and directed by abbas kiarostami. in farsi; english subtitles. 94 min .
alice’s journey is soon coming to a close, so let’s rewind back to her beginnings with ten things you might not know about the 2002 film .
ten: ten sequences in the emotional lives of six women and the challenges that they face at one particular moment in those lives, that could just as easily be ten sequences in the emotional life of the one same woman ...
ten: ten sequences in the emotional lives of six women and the challenges that they face at one particular moment in those lives, that could just as e ...
although ten is a fiction, mania akbari has said that many of the events mentioned in the conversations are based on her life, and that the film is about 80 per cent drawn from her own experience. akbari went on to become a prolific documentary filmmaker herself while kiarostami would talk further on the making of ten in his 2004 documentary, 10 on ten .
i' ve finally watched my first film from acclaimed iranian director abbas kiarostami. a big name in the iranian new wave, he has directed a number of acclaimed films. i start with his first film on the empire top 500 list (from the bottom), ten. ten is a short and simple film consisting of a dashboard camera sitting in a woman' s car as she picks up a number of different passengers. the film consists of ten scenes, which the film helpfully counts down every time with a grey and white number onscreen with one of those circular countdown film things .
documentary where iranian filmmaker abbas kiarostami reflects on his own film - making techniques, drawing from his own films - and 2001' s ten in particular .
with resident evil: the final chapter rapidly approaching its release date, let’s take a look at ten random facts about the first movie in the film series .
if you think that a film consisting of 10 conversations shot from a car’s dashboard with two digital cameras sounds boring, then you haven’t seen iranian director abbas kiarostami’s ten (2002). from this simple premise, kiarostami, who died in july last year, brings us an insightful look at the problems iranian women face while delivering enough drama and conflict to hold the attention of the most politically indifferent viewer .
a visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick - ups and hitchhikers .
ten will be screened tomorrow at the hong kong film archive, in sai wan ho, and on march 5 at the hong kong arts centre agnès b. cinema, in wan chai. 10 on ten will be screened on february 1 at the hong kong film archive, and on march 5 at the hong kong arts centre. both films are screened as part of the cine fan programme .
ten was fairly good. i wasn' t blown away by anything happening, but it' s interesting to see what catches the fancy of…
ten, the latest film by iranian master filmmaker abbas kiarostami, focuses on ten conversations between a female driver in tehran and the passengers in her car. her exchanges with her young son, a jilted bride, a prostitute, a women on her way to prayer and others, shed light on the lives and emotions of these women whose voices are seldom heard .
motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in moma' s film collection cannot be licensed by moma / scala. for licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. for access to motion picture film stills please contact the
incidentally, votes for the world' s top ten are accepted by post and electronically via a dedicated website urltoken which details the most popular nominations, identifies musical trends, and highlights the most exciting choices. thirty - second
tasters
of the world' s top ten are also available on the site .
ten, the latest film by iranian master filmmaker abbas kiarostami, focuses on ten conversations between a female driver in tehran and the passengers in her car. her exchanges with her young son, a jilted bride, a prostitute, a women on her way to prayer and others, shed light on the lives and emotions of these women whose voices are seldom heard. written by stephen kirkham
although ten unspools like a docu­mentary, it’s actually a fiction, with the characters improvising over outlines they discussed with the director before setting out on their drives .
an idea sounding as insane as the degree of quality of the resulting film, ten provides 10 insanely realistic journeys through the streets of tehran seen through the eyes of a middle - class tehran female car driver with many passengers, including her own son. the…
read empire' s review of shaun of the dead. buy the film now
read empire' s review of some like it hot. buy the film now
read empire' s review of pan' s labyrinth. buy the film now
read empire' s review of there will be blood. buy the film now
read empire' s review of guardians of the galaxy. buy the film now
read empire' s review of schindler' s list. buy the film now
read empire' s review of the godfather part ii. buy the film now
read empire' s review of back to the future. buy the film now
palme d' or, best short film :
ver llover ...
read empire' s review of no country for old men. buy the film now
read empire' s review of captain america: civil war. buy the film now
read empire' s review of singin' in the rain. buy the film now
read empire' s review of l. a. confidential. buy the film now
read empire' s review of the silence of the lambs. buy the film now
read empire' s review of mad max: fury road. buy the film now
read empire' s review of terminator 2: judgment day. buy the film now
read empire' s review of 2001: a space odyssey. buy the film now
read empire' s review of raiders of the lost ark. buy the film now
emboldened, i suggested he throw his corporate muscle behind abbas kiarostami' s brilliant, radically minimal new film ten. at this thought, sadly, the executive flinched as if someone had presented him a large tax bill while simultaneously hitting him over the head with a frying pan .
this film is an emotive and intelligent analysis of comtemporary iranian life that follows a female driver as she meets ten different passengers in one day. the relationships which develop between the driver and her passengers are explored in such a way as to expose the humanity of these very disparate people .
a mother drives around tehran and has ten separate conversations with several different passengers. kiarostami once again experiments with digital video in capturing the hours of conversations that used to cut down into the narrative. urltoken
read empire' s review of indiana jones and the last crusade. buy the film now
read empire' s review of it' s a wonderful life. buy the film now
read empire' s review of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. buy the film now
this film slowly (some may think, initially, too slowly) draws you in .
ilayaraja' s composition
adi rakkamma kaiya thattu' tops the bbc world service top ten chart followed by cliff richard' s
we don' t talk any more
and cher' s
believe
.
read empire' s review of star wars: return of the jedi. buy the film now
read empire' s review of once upon a time in the west. buy the film now
film critic and columnist roger ebert, author of the great movies (2002), the great movies ii (2005), and the great movies iii (2010) has made many detailed references to urltoken in his chicago sun - times
answer man
column and in his many writings about the great movies over the years. he has written that the site is
an invaluable repository of movie descriptions and dialogue
and that it is an
awesome website [ that ] contains detailed descriptions of 300 great american films, along with many other riches .
ten is very similar in style to his 1997 film taste of cherry, only a less focused plot with a home - video feel to it, both in front and behind the camera. this doesn' t keep it from being equally compelling with true to life characters and situations dealing with life as a woman in iran .
read empire' s review of one flew over the cuckoo' s nest. buy the film now
read empire' s review of the good, the bad and the ugly. buy the film now
the first of kiarostami’s films to be banned in his native country, ten consists of a series of conversations filmed with two cameras mounted on a dashboard. from this simple premise comes a fascinating and insightful work by a master of cinema
read empire' s review of e. t. — the extra - terrestrial. buy the film now
read empire' s review of the lord of the rings: the two towers. buy the film now
read empire' s review of star wars: episode iv — a new hope. buy the film now
the film is excellent, but the dvd is not at all. it was the second time that i ordered this. unfortunately you can watch the film only by using a computer not dvd player. anyway, the film is about the dark days of iranians in the present iran. i suggest you watch it .
ten é um filme totalmente construido sobre seus diálogos. as câmeras sempre estão focalizadas na motorista vivida por mania akbari ou em seu passageiro, excetuando em um único momento especifico, em que é mostrada uma situação que ocorre em frente ao carro .
in the ten scenes / conversations confining the film, the main point of interest seems to be the way women are treated in iran' s modern day society and, more generally, personal social problems of people in iran. we learn about the difficulty of getting a divorce. we see the woman talk with her sister about their parents. we see (actually…
the anti - narrative of abbas kiarostami’s docufiction ten moves along as a countdown. but, a countdown, as would happen in a kiarostami film, that leads to no spectacular, climactic end. for the filmmaker has always been concerned with the minutia of everyday life, people over dramatic storytelling, and the thin line between illusion and reality on screen over flashy camera tricks or groundbreaking filmic techniques. and thus, ten stands as perhaps his most bare bones film yet – at least, on the surface. in his first foray into digital, he places two cameras on the hood of a car simulating hidden “dash - cams” and alternates between two static angles over the course of the film’s runtime (with one notable exception). if taste of cherry found the director stretching the use of a vehicle in motion for a viable set, ten is the culmination of his vehicular - obsessed cinema, never once capturing footage from outside the car. so, what could kiarostami possibly achieve within the confines of the front seat of an automobile driving through the streets of tehran? as typical of the works of this iranian master, there’s much more going on in the film than what simply appears in the frame .
read empire' s review of star wars: episode v — the empire strikes back. buy the film now
the best that cinema has had to offer since 2000 as picked by 177 film critics from around the world .
if anyone were to ask me what i did as a director on this film, i' d say ,
nothing, and yet if i didn' t exist, this film wouldn' t have existed .
begins with a beautiful and articulate female driver (the beguiling mania akbari) picking up her young son from school. after boldly revealing in a less than harmonious exchange that the woman has divorced her husband, the film goes on to meditatively explore the relationships that develop between the driver and her disparate passengers over the course of ten brief but intricately mapped - out journeys .
read empire' s review of the lord of the rings: the return of the king. buy the film now
read empire' s review of the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring. buy the film now
this is a suggested viewing list of narrative films for the film and visual studies phd offered by harvard university. …
i have seen many impressive iranian films over the years .
ten
may be the very best of them for a variety of reasons. i think the film is remarkable because it looks so simple, but i imagine setting up the camera and capturing the realistic dialogue and plot - line we see in the film had to have taken a lot of preparation. i also think the director deliberately chose scenery to accommodate the backdrop of the film, and he must have driven around teheran constantly to figure out which images to put in the background. i think the scenes with the murals of new arch - conservative president are very telling .
ten
seems to have a lot of messages under the radar, including the subversive powers of all governments (certainly including our own in america) to censor art. i think the relationship between the mother and her son is a very poignant one, and it shows how children and adults simply live in different spheres of the universe. film is strikingly similar in some aspects to american independent filmmaker rob nilsson' s film
signal 7
which came out over 20 years ago .
such questions aren' t uncommon with kiarostami' s films. for many directors, achieving this kind of naturalism would be victory enough. but kiarostami' s interests are vaster, his talents more prodigious. his project is nothing less than a redefinition of how we see movies. ten represents his most radical interrogation of authorial power yet, as the epigraph above suggests. the film questions the power relationships immanent in cinema: between the director and his actors, between the artist and his audience. centering as it does on a most banal activity - - driving - - ten also expands our notion of what is worthy of a filmmaker' s gaze - - and, by definition, our attention .
ten is shot almost entirely with two fixed digital video cameras trained on the driver and passenger seat of a moving car. it is a film which presents itself with as little cinematic fuss as an episode of tv' s marion and geoff. certainly it has much less obvious impact than a film with a similar driver - passenger theme: kiarostami' s palme d' or - winning taste of cherry. this has the similar sense of intimacy on the move, exploiting the car' s singular potential as a partly private, partly public place .
a depiction of the off - screen relationship between the actors who play the newlyweds in the film zendegi va digar hich (1992) .
but ten has something taste of cherry didn' t: a kind of
what just happened ?
feeling that only hits you afterwards. it' s a sense that you have witnessed something profoundly important happen in someone' s life, without any close - ups or stirring music to help you realise it .
the true story of hossain sabzian that impersonated the director mohsen makhmalbaf to convince a family they would star in his so - called new film .
the film is very good, but, something is wrong with the dvd. i is only good for comuter not dvd player! ! !
voted the most important director of the 1990s in an extensive poll of us critics, ten more than confirms iranian filmmaker abbas kiarostamis cinematic standing. the creator of such meticulous works as through the olive trees, the taste of cherry and the wind will carry us, ten offers a continuation and development of his perennial themes and distinctive visual aesthetic whilst also succeeding as a satisfying and hugely compelling human drama. set entirely within the single location of the cars interior and shot with just a handful of actors on digital video, kiarostami delivers a humane, emotive and intelligent analysis of contemporary life and a radical yet intimate exploration of the wondrous possibilities of the cinematic medium .
the film separates into 10 acts, with a countdown graphic that felt like something out of a student film. because the camera never leaves the dashboard of a mother' s car (played by mania akbari) as hours and days pass, we do need that separator to avoid any confusion. the…
despite its critical acclaim, i was uncertain approaching abbas kiarostami' s' ten'. though filming entirely on intimate close - up in the front of a single taxicab seemed a striking and innovative approach to a film, i did feel it might end up being a limitation for the film, and that 90 minutes of front seat conversations might begin to grate a little. i needn' t have worried. the film' s stories are fully gripping - from that of mania akbari' s unnamed taxi driver (and single mother) struggling to justify her divorce and remarriage to her son, to that of a cynical prostitute, and the relationship issues of akbari' s frustrated sister, to mention a few. the acting is superbly naturalistic, and nowhere do the conversations feel at all forced or overstated. major issues in iranian society are covered in the dialogue - from islamic dress codes, to religious faith, the plight of modern iranian women, and more; though they are woven wonderfully into the dialogue, so that they seem, as they rightly are in iranian society, the concerns of the people (primarily the women) of tehran. it' s very rare that a film appears without fault, but the 90 minutes of' ten' are almost flawless. even the scene between akbari' s driver, and a religion - focused elderly lady, which initially seems a little cliched, soon transforms into something more subtle and complex. for those seeking an honest, realist portrayal of iranian society that will provoke thought and entertain, or just looking for an innovative and absorbing cinema, i can' t recommend' ten' highly enough .
thanks for the fantastic write - up. ten is the only kiarostami movie i haven' t seen, and i' m not entirely sure why. from your description though, it seems like the only one of his non - koker films to resist abstraction. the end of taste of cherry being one of the most powerful and simultaneously frustrating conclusions .
urltoken is an award - winning website for classic film buffs, students, moviegoers and anyone else interested in the great movies of the last century. detailed plot synopses, review commentary and film reference material are just some of the features available on the site. the site also contains film analysis, original content, information on the top films and most memorable movie scenes ,
best of ...
articles, and the most popular film quotes in all genres of film. its many resources include a comprehensive overview of film history, a complete survey of the academy awards (oscars), milestones and turning points in the industry, and background and descriptions for hundreds of classic hollywood / american and other english - language movies from the last one hundred years. in the mid - 1990s when it was first launched, urltoken was one of the first websites to initiate the trend to select 100 greatest films in the history of cinema .
a director and his son return to a region damaged by the guilan earthquake, hoping to find the children who appeared in his film a few years earlier .
and while ten appears somewhat limited in comparison to the filmmaker’s greatest works due to its confined structure, it still remains an impressive effort from one of cinema’s finest directors, and an important pioneering work of digital photography. certainly, ten ’s dashboard confessional set - up wouldn’t have been possible prior to the advent of such digital technology. it even calls into question the role of a director as film enters its second century as a major narrative art form. kiarostami himself was rarely present on “set” during the shoot, subsequently creating the film from hours of footage in the editing room. in this way, it reveals its carefully planned structure as well as the director’s insistence on obliterating the barrier between reality and fiction. akbari starring alongside her real son brings her own sense of what it means to be a woman to the film as a real - life activist and director herself. she’s not, however, an archetype, and it’s crucial to note there was a fair amount of (loosely) scripted material for these actors to perform. she changes her opinions throughout, has good and bad days with her volatile son, at once questions a prostitute’s profession and then later echoes her advice when consoling a friend whose husband will leave her – in essence, through narrative fiction, kiarostami captures a slice of real life. it’s especially refreshing from a group of people who aren’t often given a voice so freely in their own country. ten may make no grand political or feminist statements, but its strength lies in this simplicity. women are people too – with feelings, fears, opinions, goals, dreams – and with his signature automobile setting, kiarostami provides them a safe place to freely express who they are .
film making at its most minimal but with a narrative structure and convincing performances (the child actor is amazing) that belies the simplicity of two camera angles, no ...
there' s a universal appeal in ten and i wish i could say it' s coming soon to a cinema near you. but the tabloids don' t review iranian movies, the multiplexes don' t show them and they' re ignored by terrestrial tv and rarely shown on cable. but you can catch them at art centres and, thanks largely to ica and artificial eye, you can see them on video .
is a very simple film on its surface, but its thematic and emotional depths are far more complex than its elegant formal minimalism would suggest. the film features ten conversations of varying lengths between a woman (mania akbari) and the various passengers she picks up while driving around tehran, including her seven - year - old son, her sister, some friends, and a few strangers who she gives rides to. kiarostami sets up a digital camera in the center of the car' s dashboard, and alternates between shots angled at the driver and shots angled at her passenger. with only one exception — after she drops off a prostitute she' d picked up, the camera watches out the front windshield as the prostitute walks away and picks up a client — there are only these two camera set - ups in the entire film, sometimes remaining trained on one face for extended period, sometimes switching back and forth between the two partipants in these discussions. it is an utterly basic formal structure, and yet the film is never less than enthralling, because its wide - ranging dialogues are so interesting, and the portrait it builds of an iranian woman' s life is so compelling .
kiarostami proves that you don' t need a big budget to shoot a great film. this film is assembled entirely from the footage from two fixed cameras in the protaganist' s car, one pointing at the driver' s seat, and the other in the passenger seat. ten times she picks up a passenger (sometimes a person we have already met) and drives them through the streets of tehran. through their conversations, a deeply human picture emerges of the complexity of her life and that of her passengers. contrary to the description given, i' d like to say that the woman is attractive but not beautiful. this accolade goes to her final passenger. the final scene, in which almost nothing happens, will rip your heart out. if you are a human being this film is one that will touch your heart with a deeper appreciation of what it means to be human. as such, it leaves you better than when you found it. watch it with a good friend .
thanks a lot, sam. agreed that the formal device is pretty simple in itself and not necessarily unique to this film, but the rigorous way in which kiarostami uses it here is extraordinary .
awful film, probably the worst i have ever seen. it' s one of those artsy type films and it really wasn' t for me. i was bored from start to finish .
it goes without saying that any french film released in the mid - to late - sixties will welcome comparisons to the so - called new wave, but aside from a shared social conscience in a contemporary setting, sembène’s film represents a work with a distinctly african voice. (this is not to say, of course, that sembène would shy away from his influences – the french title la noire de… is an unmistakable reference to max ophüls’ best - known film .) and, it also marks the beginning of an exciting, decades - spanning career that helped jumpstart modern african cinema. it should come as no surprise, then, that a mid - twentieth century film hopping from africa to europe and then back again would be explicitly concerned with the aftereffects of colonialism on a ravaged continent .
it attests to kiarostami' s greatness that the most memorable scene in this movie preoccupied with form is a decidedly human one. late in ten, the driver' s lovelorn friend makes a stunning revelation and sheds unhappy tears. quietly epiphanic and heartbreaking, the image sears itself into the consciousness - - an impact for which kiarostami modestly disclaims credit .
in all my films, there are shots where the emotional impact goes beyond direction, triumphing over it, and the emotion becomes more powerful than cinema itself ,
he says in a director' s statement for this film. such humility is precisely what makes his movies so momentous, and the experience of watching them so illuminating .
thanks, vidal. i agree, it' s stunning how sophisticated and complex this film is considering the utter simplicity of its form. there are so many layers and so many ideas within this deceptively basic framework .
in his early films, kiarostami used stories of children to make social, if not political, points, thereby circumventing iran’s harsh censorship laws. but ten is more direct in its social analysis, and was consequently the first of his films to be banned in the country – four of its sequences were judged unfit for public viewing. the women discuss issues such as discrimination, how they have no legal standing and how a woman can file for a divorce only when her husband has beaten her .
his newest movie is a dependably brainy provocation. aggressively minimalist but far from stingy with its gifts, ten is a disarmingly lifelike, yet formally rigorous, road movie. the premise is so simple, it' s high concept: two digital video cameras affixed to a car' s dashboard, one framing the driver, the other the passenger. the entire movie is comprised of conversations - - 10 in this case - - between the two, as the car navigates the eerily familiar streets of downtown tehran .
the film' s artifice is perhaps most obvious in the first of the ten conversations, in which the driver picks up her precocious, angry son amin (amin maher), who berates her for getting divorced and for not being a more dedicated mother. throughout this remarkable conversation, the camera remains trained on amin, privileging his perspective — it' s not until this conversation is over, 15 minutes into the film, that akbari herself finally appears. much of the conversation is captured in unbroken single takes, with occasional cuts that are easily disguised by the jostling of the car; it gives the impression of a single long shot, focused on this boy' s face as he argues vehemently with his mother. the content of the conversation is unusually direct and adult for a fight between a mother and her young son, with amin telling her that she' s selfish, that she shouldn' t have divorced his father, that she only thinks of herself .
kiarostami first filmed from the passenger seat of a vehicle in taste of cherry (1997), the story of a truck driver who wants to commit suicide. ten grew out of kiarostami’s discovery that a psychologist used a car for therapy sessions, as well as his realisation that the interior of a car is one of the few places in iran that is secluded enough for women to speak freely. he has also noted that the physi­cal space of a car, in which the passengers do not face each other, encourages free talk .
this political subtext bubbled to the surface explosively when the cast and crew of aquarius staged a protest at the film’s cannes premiere in may 2016. placards that likened the imminent dismissal of then - president dilma rousseff and eventual rise of michel temer to a coup d’état plunged the film’s national release into controversy. critics of filho’s own leftist leanings condemned the film and even called for boycotts, but others took solace in clara’s bold defiance. before long aquarius – though never once explicitly referencing the specifics of brazil’s political crisis – became an emblem of a nation in turmoil. in the same year that the western world endured brexit and the rise of trump, the thematic posture at the center of filho’s film inevitably crossed international boundaries. in the u. s. liberal elitism came under fire throughout 2016, and trump’s eventual defeat of clinton (for many, the embodiment of that very elitism) seemed to signal the end of that ideology’s cultural reign .
orson welles’ game - changing fictional biopic, that managed to both launch his film career and ruin it at the same time (turns out it’s not a good idea to piss off powerful newspaper magnates by viciously satirising them to a mass audience). not only did he use impressive new film - making techniques that make it feel like a movie far younger than its 76 years, but its power - corrupts story still resonates loudly. now more than ever, in fact .
irreverent city engineer behzad comes to a rural village in iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. in the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result .
abbas kairostami was the master of using experiments to tell humane stories - - here he tells of a liberal woman in iran. in 10 scenes, she is driving strangers and loved one places. it opens with a seventeen minute scene of her driving her angry, bitter young son. the conflict in this film comes from her divorce and remarriage, which has heavily affected the son. he never really overcomes it throughout the narrative of this film. she seems to come to an understanding that she is not going to change him given their society. there are several scenes (3 or 4) with the son, but all of the other scenes color the film so well because this woman drives other women. a…
the sophomore feature of rising critic - turned - filmmaker kleber mendonça filho – and first of his that i’ve seen – is perhaps the defining film of the current transitional season between a globally destabilizing 2016 and a worryingly uncertain 2017. for this american (that is, a citizen of the united states) approaching aquarius in the aftermath of a brutal election cycle, it’s difficult not to view the film as a particularly profound statement on political and societal upheaval in our divided nation. but, what’s perhaps even more astounding, then, is that aquarius is a brazilian film, resolutely concerned with the politics and culture of brazil. it’s certainly a testament to the richness of filho’s work that the implications are thus this far - reaching .
how two sibling indie film - makers with only a slick, sexy little crime film to their name (bound) created their own blockbuster sci - fi franchise. and opened up western audiences to the truth that kung - fu acrobatics are so much more fun than watching american or european muscle - men waving guns around. while also making everyone examine some fundamental philosophical questions about reality. thanks to the wachowskis, we all took the red pill, and we' ve never regretted it since .
if you’ve been keeping up with the movies, you definitely know the protagonist’s name is alice. but back when you were watching that original film for the first time, you wouldn’t have known. nobody actually speaks her name at any point in the movie .
the controversy surrounding kubrick’s pop - art visualisation of anthony burgess’ dystopian mediation on violence and free will may have long - since subsided, but the film' s no less powerful. especially that singin’ in the rain sequence, which remains one cinema’s most deeply upsetting .
these four spectacles proved, among many things, one peculiar aspect: kiarostami is the best director ever to film conversations and extraordinarily absorbing journeys inside cars. he is a fan of in - car scenes and the astonishing rural and natural landscapes surrounding the four wheels .
comprised of ten separate episodes, the film follows one woman (mania akbari) as she drives around conversing with the various people – mostly women – who populate the passenger seat of her car. in the first segment, we’re introduced to the unnamed woman’s son amin (played by akbari’s real - life son) first as he climbs into the front seat of the car. for nearly fifteen minutes, the pair argues and shouts over each other, insulting and name - calling the other. we learn amin disapproves of his mother’s decision to divorce his father, and he thus holds a very low opinion of her. akbari understandably defends herself, but amin won’t have it. eventually, when the car slows, he opens the door and jumps out in anger. only once he’s gotten out does the frame switch to the camera resting on akbari and we see our primary character for the first time .
the two best 2016 releases i caught this year were easily silence and toni erdmann. martin scorsese’s religiously complex epic is his best film in over twenty years and one of the greatest and most honest filmic explorations of christianity that i’ve seen. and, maren ade’s outrageously beloved toni erdmann fortunately lived up to the hype. it was whip - smart, uncomfortably awkward, flat - out hilarious at times, and unexpectedly poignant in its denouement. sandra hüller and peter simonischek knocked it out of the park as the dysfunctional daughter and father at the film’s center .
, sung by s. p. balasubramaniam and swarnalatha, and tuned by well - known tamil film director, illayaraja, leads the bbc world service poll, which has attracted votes from 112 countries. so far, the most number of votes have been sent in from india .
it’s difficult to view aquarius divorced from the political climate in which it was written and released, and it’s possible filho intended its reception to so astutely reflect its time. as with all politically or culturally relevant works of art, however, it may very well threaten the film’s lasting impact. for now, it certainly stands as one of the year’s finest. strip away the controversy it’s generated, and aquarius is also a beautiful treatise on the power of memories. one of the film’s recurring images reminded me of olivier assayas’ equally affecting masterpiece summer hours. in that film assayas’s camera lingered on heirlooms and paintings that served as capsules of a family’s legacy – a fragile legacy forced to weather generational changes as a matriarch’s progeny decide to transport these artifacts from their ancestral home to a museum, a decision imbued with implication but one assayas refuses to judge .
the resemblance between the two extends all the way to kiarostami' s penchant for gnomic utterances :
we can never get close to the truth except through lying ,
goes one typical kiarostami nugget. hard to pin down, kiarostami' s movies are never forbidding, something i admittedly can' t say for godard. the equanimity of a true humanist flows through his work. ten may not be the masterpiece its admirers would like to think it is (particularly when stacked up against kiarostami' s previous achievements), but it' s as gentle, intelligent, provocative, and radical as any movie you' ll likely see this year .
even before the exhausting overuse of said technique had become cliché, yang seemed to have already offered his own twist with the terrorizers, which weaves three or four separate narrative threads together through coincidence and most often inference. this last point is crucial in understanding why yang and hou remain such influential figures in film; viewer participation is a must when engaging the art of either one. though yang forces his characters into each other’s spheres with one precipitating act, the specifics of these accidental connections remain alarmingly oblique and ultimately incomplete. in the film’s stunning opening sequence alone, we’re left wondering who delivers the scene - setting voiceover, who’s lying dead in the middle of the street, and who’s responsible for the shootout that sets each of these strands in motion. that yang’s film never really answers any of these questions may prove frustrating for some viewers, but for others it’s all part of the fascinating puzzle he creates .
welcome to simply home entertainment, your home for classic film, tv, special interest and documentary on dvd. we stock the biggest releases from the big screen alongside specialist film and documentary. love tv? make sure you check out our tv drama dvds where you can find the most recent hits alongside popular tv from the 60s, 70s and beyond. reminiscing about old songs that you don’t hear on the radio anymore? we have a huge selection of cds from easy listening and rock & roll, to jazz, classical and everything in - between. free delivery is available on uk orders when you spend £33 .
and what can we really call a new classic? what in recent vintage can hold its own on the big screen with the likes of the searchers, the godfather, the rules of the game, seven samurai or citizen kane? some film journalists even think the movie star is a thing of the past .
excellent write - up, ed. this is easily my favorite kiarostami movie, if not my favorite movie from iran. it just impresses me how much is expressed with so little; a fine example of why more cinematic and editing techniques are not necessary in order to make a film
say
something .
more than a decade before fellow countryman jafar panahi made the wonderful, yet shamefully underrated taxi, abbas kiarostami took his trademark cardriving scenes and put them into one film. with a mere two camera positions he shows the daily happenings of a woman, beautifully portrayed by mania akbari, and the people around her .
yes, it most certainly is an exceptional film, one of the director' s finest, and as captivating a look into the sociological moorings of iranian society as any other work. the device used her is not new (we saw it used by kiaromstami in his previous a taste of cherry and by jarmusch and others) but it' s unique in the all - encompassing manner in which it' s presented here. i applaud you for probing beneath the surface of the device and the miniminalism to unearth the prevalent thees, male domination among them. any viewing of this film should include a reading of this masterful review afterwards .
the following nine episodes play out like this with casual and believably natural discussions between the driver and her passengers. over the course of the film we meet her sister, two friends with similar relationship issues, an elderly woman she picks up and takes to mosque, a prostitute who she picks up by mistake, and her son a few more times. slowly, a portrait of the state of women in iran forms as topics of sexuality, marriage, careers, and societal expectations regarding roles realistically surface during these several conversations. there are no men in the film – save for akbari’s preteen son who stands in for traditional male dominance – so the film’s voice decidedly belongs to women. it’s a welcome change of perspective for the director who hasn’t dealt explicitly with the role of women in his native country or female protagonists in his work in general despite the daring efforts of his former protégé jafar panahi to do just that with his the circle only two years prior .
like bowie’s blackstar, akerman’s final film no home movie is destined to remain inextricably tied to the singular filmmaker’s death in all future discourse. a mere two months following the film’s premiere, akerman was found dead – the media reporting it a suicide. given this staggering filmic essay’s intensely personal subject matter, it’s no stretch to link akerman’s passing with the inevitable, yet devastating outcome of this unplanned, unscripted work. from over twenty hours of footage shot over the course of the last years of her mother’s life, akerman pieces together intimate filmed conversations between she and her mother natalia. most of these take place within the confines of natalia’s brussels flat, but akerman also includes long distance interactions captured via skype as well as marathon uninterrupted takes of barren landscapes or inert objects to underscore the pains of the passage of time as only she could. it’s fitting that her final film, then, is also expressly concerned with how time affects her camera’s subject, but it’s also shockingly intimate in its execution .
wow. at first the digital format was a little grating but it grew on me. the vignette format reminded me of an avant - garde short i watched at the wexner back in february, just with the countdowns signaling passage of time and changing of subject (vignettes). i' m only three films deep in his catalogue, but ten seems like yet another example of kiarostami being an incredible filmmaker, and an important social figure in iran (- ian cinema). apparently the conversation in a car - format was supposed to be referential to his own established style, but i' ve only seen two of his films so it wasn' t as apparent as it would' ve been to someone more acclimated to his style! lol, oops .
the modernism, meanwhile, is felt not only in its squib - heavy bloodletting, but also the way it handles the gangster flick itself. back in the genre' s heyday, hays code restrictions ensured it could only dole out rise - and - fall tales which established in no uncertain terms that the mob was a seething, violent force of corruption that a good society would always quell. here, though, we had an italian - american film - maker (the first to make an american gangster film) showing the mafia as something, if not quite sympathetic, certainly more human; an organisation which is very much the product of society, rather than simply a malevolent, morally alien force .
abbas kiarostami, best established of iranian directors and the mentor of several younger filmmakers, is the master of the talking - and - driving movie. he shared the palme d' or at cannes four years ago for taste of cherry, in which the protagonist drives around the outskirts of teheran trying to persuade a variety of people to bury him after he has committed suicide. in ten, his wonderfully nuanced new picture, at once simple and technically bold, a middle - class woman (mania akbari) makes 10 journeys around the inner city. all around her is urban bustle, seen and heard, but the camera never shifts from a position near the middle of the dashboard. the lens is aimed either at her or her passenger, there are no two - shots and we never see the car from the outside .
so for some people, this movie is still too difficult. i can only say that it is a very remarkable film, one of the very best of the year - remarkable for its strenuous technical simplicity, for its superbly intelligent acting and for the extraordinary, almost unmediated access it appears to give to the lives and thoughts of real, modern women in iran .
you' ve got to hand it to the coen brothers. not only did they make the funniest movie of the ’90s (pretty much) — which has since spawned a genuine film cult — they also managed to construct a kidnap mystery in which the detective isn' t a detective and nobody was actually kidnapped. with bowling, marmots and a urine - stained rug .
robert zemeckis’ affable stroll through some of america’s most turbulent decades, as seen through the childlike eyes of the simple - but - successful forrest — the role which earned tom hanks his second oscar in two years. and it says a lot about the film’s emotional heft that it managed to win an oscar itself, when it was in competition with both pulp fiction and the shawshank redemption …
ten ( appears as 10 during the opening credits ) is a 2002 iranian film , a docufiction directed by abbas kiarostami , starring mania akbari and amin maher . it was nominated for the palme d'or at the 2002 cannes film festival and ranks at number 447 on empire magazine 's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time . the film ranked no. 47 in empire magazine 's " the 100 best films of world cinema " in 2010 . the french film magazine cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 10th place in its list of best films of the decade 2000 – 2009 . the film was later voted the 98th greatest film since 2000 in an international critics ' poll conducted by bbc . 
ten (appears as 10 during the opening credits) is a 2002 iranian film, a docufiction directed by abbas kiarostami, starring mania akbari and amin maher. it was nominated for the palme d'or at the 2002 cannes film festival and ranks at number 447 on empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. the film ranked no. 47 in empire magazine's " the 100 best films of world cinema " in 2010. the french film magazine cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 10th place in its list of best films of the decade 2000 – 2009. the film was later voted the 98th greatest film since 2000 in an international critics' poll conducted by bbc.
ten (appears as 10 during the opening credits) is a 2002 iranian film, a docufiction directed by abbas kiarostami, starring mania akbari and amin maher. it was nominated for the palme d'or at the 2002 cannes film festival and ranks at number 447 on empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. the film ranked no. 47 in empire magazine's " the 100 best films of world cinema " in 2010. the french film magazine cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 10th place in its list of best films of the decade 2000 – 2009. the film was later voted the 98th greatest film since 2000 in an international critics' poll conducted by bbc.