Kino immer anders
Hossein Sabzian, an unemployed young man with a passion for cinema, sneaks into a wealthy family’s home and pretends to be the renowned film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. He boasts about a major film project in which the family is to play the leading role. When the fraud is uncovered, Hossein ends up in court.
Close-Up is a masterpiece of the second nouvelle vague of Iranian cinema. It showcases the two iconic auteurs of this movement: Abbas Kiarostami, the director, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the driving force behind the film. It is a film about the great passion for the seventh art in a country with an ancient culture, exhausted by a long war, and serves as both a theoretical work and a harbinger of pacifist messages.
Throughout Close-Up, the film toes a very fine line between reconstruction and genuine film footage. It is difficult to distinguish between the two, but Kiarostami’s work seamlessly integrates these elements, allowing cinema and reality to intertwine and inspire each other.
Federico Schembri
