Through The Olive Trees

Abbas Kiarostami - 1994
A slightly curious film, perhaps Kiarostami's most 'bitty' I have seen, with stunnign sequences breaking through.
A more metropolitan tone and set-up, with a clear skewer on certain film-making practices, not least his own. Crossed with the location. Use of 'And Life Goes On...''s married man really takes a new view on what cinema is; a cover-up, an opportunity to meet, and of course, this itself is a film... and what beautiful moments, perhaps the most straightforward (albeit one sided) love story in Kiarostami I can remember, of Hussein's wishes.
I think 'gently teasing' would be the best phrase here, an enquiry which has conclusions, which one can really engage in. Again, we have long takes, but not for any stylisitic meta-reasons. The form is of the content; that is all.... and Kiarostami is happy to use close-ups and so on when necessary. More concentration on Kiarostami's sound design would perhaps be fruitful. No image is designed to smasch you to the back of the cinema, but asks for more from you, to really look, to think about it. That is why I would call them beautiful. I have no hesitation in saying that, for me, Kiarostami makes films in a way that no-one else in the post-68 cinema has, and that he is one of the very greatest figures in my cinema.