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The new film from the modern master Abbas Kiarostami, surely not just a great modern director but a great director, full stop.
This is his first film outside Iran, and for this he has dived into the European intellectual scene. We have the long discourses of some Godard, Rohmer (more on that later) and various French and Italian traditions. This is a very European film, but made through the Iranian's viewpoint gives it so much more interest than a homage.
First, the acting. Binoche is terrific, the woman on the edge of the verge. Is she selfish? Her relation to sensuality is also fascinating. Both characters have obvious contradictions and weaknesses, yet we do indeed come to understand them, and even to like Binoche. A fine performance. Shimmell is stagey, which we shall charitably put down as deliberate rather than amateurish acting. The kind of pompous, slightly stilted and fake delivery of lines in fact works rather well. What may be ignored is that this piece is rather funny, and criticisms from a realist about the 'untrue' or 'fake' interactions, 'that people don't really act like that', misses the point. This is an exploration of a kind of reality, not of a classic realist one.
The plot is one of the most interesting discussions of relationships since, well, Eric Rohmer (rather more complex and colder, but not dissimilar, to Linlater's Before Sunrise/Sunset). We have the ideas of little compromises, of if memory matters, and of a huge amount more. It takes some digesting, the threads thrown out and weaved in. Ultimately, we have people not willing to follow there own thoughts to their limits, but wishing for the right thing. What is this?
Visually, it may seem a little dissapointing. Kiarostami, after the first shot, does not go in so much for the simple balance that made, say, 'The Wind Will Carry Us' so incredible. Perhaps he couldn't find this in the complex and neurotic Europe. But it turns out that this film is not so much visually neglected as developed. As always it is simple takes, quite close in this time. Perhaps as it is a character piece. The Ozu influences are still there, obviously in the near direct homage of the staroght to camera conversation and the slight side on takes. The classic Kiarostami tactic (not quite so well developed in this movie, due to its attempt to focus on two characters rather than one) of sticking on a face when being spoken to rather than speaking is fitfully present. We love this, and in this piece the balance struck again reminded us of Eric Rohmer. It is relationships in reactions, surely a much underplayed fulcrum.
Also Kiarostami plays with depth, visually, more than before, some wonderful and powerful reactions gained and suggested through the use of mirrors, and of persepctive from doorways. His failure to use deep focus in these scenes perhaps requires a good think to uncover the reasons.
There are a couple more things to mention visually, the car scene not just being a Kiarostami return but given a kind of transcendental quality with the reflecting lights, as though they have come to enter another world, hyperspace. Also, the final scenes are magnificent, Binoche going Renaissance on us, the lighting being used to give and take emphasis.
This film is certainly odd in its story, the lack of realsim and stilted delivery occsaionally meaning we wonder how seriously to take the piece, but overall we enjoyed it very much. Fascinating on relationships, always interesting visually, Kiarostami has not made the greatest work he has made, but he has made a film that rises about 95% of the rest of cinema.