Experience (Abbas Kiarostami, 1973)

Abbas Kiarostami’s first mid-length film, The Experience, tells the story of a photography shop errand boy who falls in love with the daughter of a client. Written by his friend Amir Naderi, a renowned director in his own right, as an autobiographical reflection, the film showcases Kiarostami's minimalist and distanced style in full form and stands out as one of his significant works exploring desire and rejection.

Philosophical Treatises of a Master Illusionist: A Conversation about Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016), arguably one of the the greatest of Iranian filmmakers, was a master of interruption and reduction in cinema. He, who passed away on Monday in a Paris hospital, diverted cinema from its course more than once. From his experimental children’s films to deconstructing the meaning of documentary and fiction, to digital experimentation, every move brought him new admirers and cost him some of his old ones. Kiarostami provided a style, a film language, with a valid grammar of its own.

On the occasion of this great loss, Jonathan Rosenbaum and I discussed some aspects of Kiarostami’s world. Jonathan, the former chief film critic at Chicago Reader, is the co-author (with Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa) of a book on Kiarostami, available from the University of Chicago Press. – Ehsan Khoshbakht

* * *

Ehsan Khoshbakht: Abbas Kiarostami's impact on Iranian cinema was so colossal that almost swallowed up everything before, and to a certain extent after. For better or worse, Iranian cinema equated Abbas Kiarostami. It was good because it made Iranian cinema a global phenomenon. And not so good when it overshadowed other filmmakers and other existing modes of filmmaking in Iran. Can you think of any other filmmaker whose presence could have dominated a national cinema to such extent?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: As you know, I tend to view Kiarostami more in transnational terms. In terms of being identified with a national cinema from outside that particular nation, I suppose one could cite Satyajit Ray, Almodovar, Bergman, and Kurosawa, among others. But from a transnational perspective, I suspect that the only figure comparable to Kiarostami, both in terms of influence and in terms of stirring up controversies, would be Godard. Godard himself apparently once said that the cinema that begins with Griffith ends with Kiarostami. For me, both directors excelled in creating global newspapers during separate decades -- Godard in the 60s, Kiarostami in the 90s. And people are still quarrelling about their formal procedures in comparable ways. Another parallel with Godard worth mentioning is the capacity of both filmmakers to keep reinventing themselves, in terms of audience, format, relation to narrative, and much else besides. You might even say that Godard and Kiarostami each have had as many "periods" as Picasso did.

Willow and Wind, an Overlooked Gem Scripted by Abbas Kiarostami

Willow and Wind

Willow trees bend easily in the slightest breeze, but even the wildest wind cannot uproot them. That is, more or less, the story of children in Mohammad Ali Talebi’s cinema; they are affected by every turn, every event, each nuance of the adult world, but they never fall down or stop fighting.

Willow and Wind is Talebi’s greatest cinematic achievement, both in terms of narrative and visual style. It tells an amazingly simple, sometimes absurd story. Like a Persian miniature, it is expressed through fine details. It depicts the efforts of a young boy to carry a large piece of glass some distance across country, to reach the school where he has broken a window during a football match. He’s not allowed back into class until he mends it.

I've Got Something to Say that Only You Children Would Believe — A Book Illustrated by Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami had a long, colourful career as an illustrator, graphic and film title sequence designer, and photographer before his career as a filmmaker got kick-started in the early 1970s.

His slow success and even a slower international recognition meant that this first part of his artistic life had vert little chance to be appreciated in time and not surprisingly, it was overlooked even by his ardent audience. One could argue, his eventual coming back to these fields (plus poetry and installation) in the 21th century was itself a classic case of Kiarostamian "return" as often seen in his films: returning to a home, to a place, to a landscape, in this case, to old passions.

A great portion of the achievements of these early years remain unavailable but here we have a wonderful example of his illustration work which he contributed to a children book, written by modernist poet and author Ahmad Reza Ahmadi.

One of Kiarostami's illustrations for the book

Abbas Kiarostami, a Cinema of Participation [Introduction to Harvard Film Archive Retrospective, May 2020]

Abbas Kiarostami circa late 60s, probably in his studio. On the wall (left) the poster for Masoud Kimiai's Come Stranger (1968), designed by Kiarostami.

Written for Harvard Film Archive's forthcoming retrospective dedicated to Kiarostami. More info here. — EK


Known for single-handedly putting Iran on the map of international cinema, Abbas Kiarostami’s filmmaking style was shaped by a variety of Persian arts, especially poetry. Reframing the world and the relationships between individuals through his creative involvement with actors—often amateurs, often children—and showing a keen eye for the beauty of landscapes, he produced philosophical works that reinvigorated the genres of documentary and narrative fiction.

Born in 1940, Kiarostami developed a love of painting at a young age, which led him to enroll in Tehran’s University of Fine Arts. During the 1960s he was involved in the film and television industry, both as a director of commercials and as a title designer for films. After the initiation of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known as Kanoon), which as part of its artistic activities provided funding and facilities for the production of films for or about children, Kiarostami joined the organization and made The Bread and Alley, a short film about a boy’s fear of a stray dog.

Gozaresh [The Report] (Abbas Kiarostami, 1977)

Kuosh Afsharpanah and Shohre Aghdashloo in The Report

Playing this weekend at ICF Center in New York.

The Report [original title: Gozaresh]

Abbas Kiarostami • Iran 1977 • 1h49m • Persian with English subtitles • Cast: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Kurosh Afsharpanah, Mehdi Montazar, Mostafa Tari, Hashem Arkan.

Arguably Kiarostami's least-known great film, part of the difficultly in accessing this compelling marriage drama lies in the fact that it was screened in Iran during the last months of the Pahlavi reign, when the country was gripped by strikes, demonstrations and acts of revolutionary violence – hardly the time for cinema, even if the film did relatively well. Shortly afterwards, when the revolution succeeded, the film – like so many other Iranian films showing nudity, sex or even unveiled women – was banned. The original elements of the film believed to be destroyed during the revolution and the copies in circulation have an unexpected cut in the middle of a scene of intimacy between the two leading characters, suggesting that it has been cut out after the revolution.

According to Iranian film critic Nima Hassani-Nasab, the film was totally conscious of the chaos which lay ahead: "The characters of the film are torn between a desire to revolt on one hand and cowardice and social inaction on the other. This conflict plunges them into dissatisfaction and fills them with hatred for both themselves and the repetitious cycle of life they live."

First Case, Second Case (Abbas Kiarostami, 1979)

Abbas Kiarostami, circa mid-70s

Programme notes written for the world premiere of the restored version of the film at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2019. — EK


GHAZIEH-E SHEKL-E AVVAL, GHAZIEH-E SHEKL-E DOVVOM
First Case, Second Case
Abbas Kiarostami, 1979

Written by Abbas Kiarostami. Shot by Houshang Baharlou. Edited by Abbas Kiarostami. Cast: Mehdi Azadbakht, Mohammadreza Barati, Hedayat Matin Daftari, Nader Ebrahimi, Gholamreza Emami, Mahmoud Enayat, Ezzatolah Entezami, Ali Mousavi Garmaroudi, Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh.

First Case, Second Case

This banned and rarely seen pseudo-documentary by Kiarostami is a testimony to his seldom acknowledged political shrewdness and his objective, complex perspective on the tumultuous events of the late 70s in Iran, culminating in the revolution. Remarkably, he achieved this without leaving his comfort zone, the classroom setting, and by staying faithful to his inquiring style, with its subtle, imaginative manipulation of recorded reality. Here, he also mastered the interview format (recently introduced into his body of work by Tribute to Teachers,1977), putting his finger on the pulse of Iranian society by collaging conflicting viewpoints.

Upcoming Screening: Abbas Kiarostami's Political Allegories

Solution No. 1

Playing tonight (June 14, 7:30 PM) at Close-Up Film Centre in London. Booking.



First Graders [Avvaliha]
Abbas Kiarostami
1985 | 79 min | Colour

“First Graders is best considered as a companion film to Homework. Both deal in the most explicit way with issues of primary school education, with deviations for the sake of meta-poetic or political commentary. This film serves less as a critique of the educational system, instead focusing on the role of the school headmaster, who resembles the judge in Close-Up. He is a patient, spiritual figure who restores order and with this portrait Kiarostami provides a subtle and somehow sympathetic image of a totalitarian leader, in which there is both ambiguity and irony.” – Ehsan Khoshbakht

The Report (1977)

Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Report

The Report [original title: Gozaresh]
Abbas Kiarostami • Iran 1977 • 1h49m • Persian with English subtitles • Cast: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Kurosh Afsharpanah, Mehdi Montazar, Mostafa Tari, Hashem Arkan.

Produced by Iranian New Wave cinema director and producer Bahman Farmanara (making this Kiarostami’s first break with Kanoon), The Report centres on an unhappy marriage and offers viewers a time-capsule of middle class life in Tehran in the 70s. Starring Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo, and a major influence on many Iranian directors of the post-revolutionary era (including the two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi), this deftly crafted, semi-autobiographical domestic drama was Kiarostami’s first work to feature professional actors. All copies of the film are believed to be lost or destroyed, with the digital copy presented being the sole surviving film element.

Bread and Alley (1970) + Breaktime (1972)

Breaktime

These two shorts will be playing before The Traveller at Close-Up, London, June 5, 7:30 PM.

Bread and Alley [Naan va koocheh]
Abbas Kiarostami
1970 | 10 min | B/W

Based on a real-life incident experienced by Kiarostami’s brother, Taghi, the director’s first film sets the template for his cinema until the late 1980s. It concerns a young boy who is unable to return home with the bread he has bought, due to his fear of a stray dog in an alley. The film’s jazzy soundtrack, which pretty much dictates the editing, is based on the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

Breaktime [Zang-e tafrih]
Abbas Kiarostami
1972 | 14 min | B/W

Famous for its non-narrative approach and its open ending, this story of a schoolboy who is dismissed from the classroom after breaking a window presages not only The Traveller, but also Mohammad-Ali Talebi’s film Willow and Wind, scripted by Kiarostami.

The Traveller (Abbas Kiarostami, 1974)

The Traveller is playing at Close-Up, London, June 5, 7:30 PM.

The Traveller [original title: Mosafer]
Abbas Kiarostami • Iran 1974 • 1h14m • Digital • Persian with English subtitles • Cast: Hassan Darabi, Masud Zandbegleh, Mostafa Tari.

Kiarostami’s first feature film, and arguably one of his best, The Traveller was made for Kanoon (The Centre for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults). A suspenseful, witty story of a young boy’s determination to travel from his small town to Tehran to attend a national football match, it combines realism with the economy and precision of a visual artist (the director’s first occupation before turning filmmaker). Featuring brilliant performances by a cast of non-actors, the film has one of the most gripping, unforgettable endings in film history.

Early Kiarostami: A Retrospective in London

The accompanying booklet designed by Sara Hessam Bakhtiari

Early Kiarostami is a small retrospective dedicated to the screening of 14 films by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, commencing from June 5, 2017, at Close-up Film Centre in London.


Almost one year since Abbas Kiarostami's untimely death, we celebrate the art of Iranian cinema's greatest poet by screening some of his rarely seen early films. Organised according to different themes or simply by period of production, this programme spans almost 20 years of filmmaking. It aims to reflect a journey from childhood (Bread and Alley) through adolescence (The Experience), eventually arriving at manhood and married life (The Report) – all depicted in incredibly vivid detail.

Early Kiarostami shows us an artist reframing the world and the relationships between individuals, demonstrating a uniquely creative involvement with actors – often amateurs and children – and producing philosophical works that reinvigorated the genres of documentary and narrative fiction, frequently blurring the lines between the two.

Philosophical Treatises of Master Illusionist: Discussing Abbas Kiarostami with Jonathan Rosenbaum

A memorial poster for Kiarostami, announcing the free admission screening of his films for three consecutive days, every day from 1 to 9 pm, at the Artists' House in Tehran.

A Conversation About Abbas Kiarostami between Jonathan Rosenbaum and Ehsan Khoshbakht

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016) Opens in a new tab or window., arguably the greatest of Iranian filmmakers, was a master of interruption and reduction in cinema. He, who passed away on Monday in a Paris hospital, diverted cinema from its course more than once. From his experimental children’s films to deconstructing the meaning of documentary and fiction, to digital experimentation, every move brought him new admirers and cost him some of his old ones. Kiarostami provided a style, a film language, with a valid grammar of its own.

On the occasion of this great loss, Jonathan Rosenbaum and I discussed some aspects of Kiarostami’s world. Jonathan, the former chief film critic at Chicago Reader, is the co-author (with Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa) of a book on Kiarostami Opens in a new tab or window., available from the University of Chicago Press. –  Ehsan Khoshbakht

READ THE CONVERSATION HERE IN ENGLISH, HERE IN PERSIAN, AND HERE IN SPANISH

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016)

The most celebrated of Iranian filmmakers, his cinematic style shaped by Persian art and culture, Abbas Kiarostami expanded the frame of documentary and narrative fiction forms in human dramas that resonated with international audiences. 

22 June 22 1940–4 July 2016.

Read my obituary at Sight & Sound.

Return to Uncertainity: Geoff Andrew on Kiarostami

An Interview with Geoff Andrew
Return to Uncertainty


Geoff Andrew is one of the most famous Kiarostami defenders in the current scene of film criticism, though the 72 year-old filmmaker hardly needs any defense now. But there is something different, a new perspective in Andrew's approach to Kiarostami that makes his writings and his views something of a discovery even for someone from Kiarostami's homeland, like me.

His very carefully structured book on Ten, from BFI Modern Classics series, represents a distillation of his thoughts and feelings about Ten, and about Kiarostami in general. Also a great part of this brilliant book comes out of the interviews with Kiarostami that he conducted during the past 7-8 years.

Mr. Geoff Andrew is the senior film editor for Time Out London, head of programming of the National Film Theatre, and author of numerous books, including The Films of Nicholas Ray: The Poet of Nightfall and The 'Three Colours' Trilogy.

This interview about Kiarostami’s cinema took place at National Film Theatre, London, April 2011. First it was published in Iranian Film Quarterly (Farsi translation in Film Monthly), and later the general parts of the interview appeared on Aslan Media website which can be read here. These are Q&As that didn't fit in the Aslan Media post.

Geoff Andrew on Kiarostami: An Interview

سينماي كيارستمي در گفتگويي با جف اندرو

بازگشت به عدم قطعيت

جف اندرو يكي از بزرگ‌ترين مدافعان انگلوساكسون سينماي كيارستمي است. از اين منظر فقط جاناتان روزنبام از او پيشي مي‌گيرد. او در راي گيري 2002 سايت‌اند‌ساند باد ما را خواهد برد را به عنوان فيلم دهم زندگي‌اش انتخاب كرد، در كنار نام‌هايي چون ويگو، دمي، هاكس، ولز، دراير، اوزو، رومر، كيتُن و افولس. او كتابي دربارۀ ده نوشته است (محمد شهبا در نشر هرمس آن را به فارسي برگردانده.) او كه مردي است ميان سال با موهاي سفيد و با لبخندي ملايم بر لب، در پيراهن تابستاني آبي رنگ و شلوار خاكي از پله‌هاي دفترش در طبقه بالاي بي اف آي پايين مي‌آيد. اين جا قلمروي اوست. او يكي از سعادتمندترين آدم‌هاي دنياست كه مي‌تواند فيلم‌هايي را براي نمايش انتخاب كند و هر شب صدها نفر به تماشاي آن‌ها بنشينند. پوستر فيلم‌هاي برتولوچي و ترنس راتيگان (فيلم‌نامه‌نويس بزرگ انگليسي) روي ديوارها نويد فصلي كامل از نمايش آثار آن‌ها را مي‌دهد. با او به طرف كافه سالن انتظار مي‌رويم كه خود يك فيلم سينمااسكوپ است: گستره‌اي افقي از كاناپه‌هاي قديمي و صندلي‌هاي كوتاه، درست مثل اطاق نشمين شلوغِ يك خانه، با آدم‌هاي ولو شده روي كاناپه، ليوان‌ها و فنجان‌ها و گيلاس‌ها و كاتالوگ‌هاي رها روي ميز و خانواده بزرگ سينما كه يا منتظر نمايش فيلمي هستند يا از نمايش فيلمي بازگشته‌اند. در اين سالن تاريك، به تاريكي سالن سينما اما منهاي سكوت آن، فيلم‌ها در روابط و گفتگوي بين آدم‌ها دوباره زنده مي‌شوند. هنوز ساعت سه بعدظهر است و تا شلوغي اين‌جا دو سه ساعتي زمان باقي مانده، اما به محض اين‌كه ما روي يكي از كاناپه‌هاي مي‌نشينيم صداي موسيقي بلند مي‌شود و مجبورمان مي‌كند كه به سالن مجاور نمايشگاه بي‌اف‌آي برويم. او لبه صندلي چرم قرمز سالن مي‌نشيند، دست‌هايش را در هم گره مي‌زند و روي پايش مي‌گذارد و با منتظر اولين سوال مي‌ماند. پرسش اين است كه اين انگليسي آرام و موقر را چه چيزي به سينماي كيارستمي جذب مي‌كند؟

Notes on Abbas Kiarostami

اين نوشته قبلاً به عنوان مقدمۀ گفتگوي من با جف اندرو در ماهنامه فيلم منتشر شده بود. به زودي خود گفتگو هم در پي اين پست خواهد آمد

بازگشت به عدم قطعيت

بهاري كه به تابستان مي‌ماند. نور درخشاني كه از لابلاي برگ‌هاي درختان صدساله بلوار «مال» خود را به روي زمين‌ مي‌رساند و نقاط گرم و درخشاني روي خاك پديد مي‌آورد كه مثل هزاران پرتوي نور تابانده شده از اتاق پروژكتور سينماست. اين پياده‌روي طولاني براي رسيدن به انيستتوي فيلم بريتانيا در جنوب رودخانه تيمز و مصاحبه با يكي از بزرگ‌ترين دوست‌داران سينماي عباس كيارستمي، جف اندرو، بهانه‌اي است براي مرور دوباره مسأله ساده، اما بي‌جهت پيچيده شدۀ كيارستمي در ايران؛ آميزه‌اي از تضاد بين تعاريف و خواسته‌هاي سياسي و اجتماعي مردم با هنر، وارد شدن خصومت‌ به كار حرفه‌اي، حركت بر مسيرهايي كه از فيلم‌ساز فقط يك نام باقي مي‌گذارد و آثار او را فراموش مي‌كند، تندروي‌هايي از هر دو سو كه معمولاً از حسادت، شووينيسم، خوش‌بيني مهارنشده يا بدبيني محض ناشي مي‌شوند.

Notebook's Fantasy Double Feature of 2010

NEW: Certified Copy [Copie conforme] (Abbas Kiarostami, Italy/France)
OLD: Hallelujah I’m a Bum (Lewis Milestone, 1933)

WHY: It’s true that my guilty conscious had some effect on picking Copie conforme, though it was an outstanding film itself, needless of any guilty conscious to be the criteria of a choice. I had some rough, and probably unfair, judgments on Kiarostami’s films, after The Wind Will Carry Us, and in the shadow of post-June-2009 happenings in Iran these judgments became harsher. But now, I can read the filmmaker’s thoughts more clearly, because I know if he had made any film the way that people of his country wanted he would now have his own share of 26 years. Of course,  the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has considered Copie unscreenable in Iran. But that doesn’t affect Kiarostami’s reputation, in or out of his homeland. Inside, the usual bunch of opponents call him a coward and a fake, and on the other side, many more find him one of the few who can give them back a part of the lost honor of a nation. He has his followers and protégés; not so strangely, none of them working in Iran anymore, and of course some of them, like Jafar Panahi, do not and will not work at all. But Kiarostami continues his cinematic journey, this time in Italy, and makes organic films like they are part of a change of the weather or any other natural occurrence. He is coming from a country full of frustration, a country facing its biggest troubles ever, but he is still focused on details (a kid’s notebook, a hobo’s marriage proposition after a demolishing earthquake, drivers driving Tehran street without showing any real life on those streets), details that are not related clearly and directly to the problems. Does he have any message for his own people?  The answer is hardly a yes, but maybe his continuity is the message. Wouldn’t he be forgotten, like many filmmakers with clear telegram-like messages before and after the 1979 revolution, if he had stopped being Kiarostami?
To fill the gap, to have another perspective rather than pleasant landscape of Tuscany, to remember people are losing jobs, and to not forget that not very far from now, after recent political/economical changes in Kiarostami’s homeland, a new wave of poverty will sweep up the nation, let’s watch Lewis Milestone’s masterpiece of the American left, Hallelujah I'm a Bum, about central park hobos and their hopes and dreams during the big depression; a Milestone that shows us (and Kiarostami) how can fantasy explain bitter reality. Juliette Binoche is much like Al Jolson. In the end, they both are left alone with undying hopes in hand, and tears in their eyes. Binoche and Jolson are the integral of people in Iran, today.

Cinématon: Directors/Directions

Abbas Kiarostami, Up Close

After forty years of making films and collecting a wide range of awards and golden statuettes, Abbas Kiarostami retains a unique innocence alongside his earned artistic sophistication. He reminds us of characteristics endangered in the contemporary Iranian cinematic landscape, where censorship prevents filmmakers from speaking their minds and government-approved, state-supported cinema produces the major box-office hits.

Here, Kiarostami—interviewed by Iranian film critic (and my teenage years’ film-watching companion) Nima Hassani-Nasab in Farsi in 2012 and translated by me as Kiarostami’s work gets a close-up with a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective and the opening of his latest, Like Someone in Love, in U.S. theaters next week—shows a face that cannot be easily seen in his English-language interviews. Heavily quoting Persian poets (though the resonances are, sadly, lost in the translation), and trusting the interviewer, the filmmaker takes off his dark glasses to reveal the eyes of a vulnerable, melancholic man who sees his life and the cinema itself not worthy of all the suffering he has been through.

The conversation covers many details of Kiarostami’s life and career, but mostly focuses on Shirin which is probably the only film in history of cinema in which all the female stars of one country have both appeared and have cried. The interview was conducted in Kiarostami’s north Tehran house, with tables loaded with printed papers of the Iranian maestro’s latest book: Night in the Classic & Modern Persian Poetry. The last two volumes of that controversial project were about the water and the fire in Persian poetry. Kiarostami’s own poetic art still lies in the sublime encounter of the mighty elements of this universe with tiny, funny details of ordinary life. And it’s as cinematically as fresh as the invention the wheel.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE