Close-Up

This 1991 work from Abbas Kiarostami is much revered, and, of course (being Kiarostami), a complete masterpiece.
The idea of twisting between documentary and fiction is neither done as a meta-exercsie, nor brushed over. The questions of who is acting, when they are acting, when they are all acting, come to the fore. The medium is constantly present (in a verite style), we are constantly aware of it, yet we are aware of it as looking at someone, at seeing something. The scenes Kiarostami engineers are at once clearly engineered, in their deliberate atmosphere of almost-fakery, yet in a kind of Brechtian way only this forgery allows us to see truth; the true people bbehind the acting, only available when they are acting.
This isn't Kiarostami's most visually striking film, on first look. The images are more to do with making sure we have a good view of the protagonists faces, though we do get some wonderful Ozu-esque moments during conversation. The conversation is classic naturalist Kiarostami; never pretentious, always profound in an earthy way, never sentimental.
The P.O.V. doesn't follow anyone in particular, making for quite a rough film and a twisted experience to watch. We at once follow everyone and no one; we would hesitate to say that we ever really get anyone's perspective, apart from perhaps the cab driver's at the start.
This is a film that gives up its secrets less easily than a work of the greatness of 'The Wind Will Carry Us', it is a twisted journey, where even the incredible, audacious end is wreathed in dry humour and meta-questions. But do these questions really exist at all? This film is a response that can't be articulated, only on screen, only in Kiarostami. Great.