Admittedly, whenever you work your way through an author’s collection of work - whether that of musicians, filmmakers, writers etc. - it’s exciting because you’re able to learn their language of expression. At first, their style and themes become more apparent and eventually, it’s almost as if you’re in conversation with them.
This past week I’ve felt in conversation with the late Abbas Kiarostami. The work of Kiarostami particularly lends itself to be experienced together and chronologically because most of his films are part of a dialectic in which each successive film couldn’t exist independently of the previous one. It’s been rewarding to work my way through his filmography because of not only the clear line that can be drawn through his oeuvre, but also his masterful capacity to create suspense, weave fiction and documentary, and examine the medium of film itself.
THE TRAVELER (1974), WHERE IS THE FRIEND’S HOUSE (1987)
His early neorealist features (which expanded upon the subjects in his many short films and documentaries at Kanoon Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults), focused on the worlds that children must navigate in spite of environmental and societal barriers. In The Traveler, Qassem’s passion to see a soccer match in Tehran sets him on an arduous and dubious quest to raise money for a bus ticket while in Where Is the Friend’s House, Ahmed journeys to a nearby village to return his friend’s notebook lest his friend be expelled.
Though subtle, there’s no shortage of political and social commentary woven into the quests of his protagonists. Take one poignant moment of The Traveler when Qassem finally gets to Tehran and attempts to interact with a kid around his age who’s getting swimming lessons in an indoor pool. Because Qassem and the kid are divided by a glass window, the kid can’t hear Qassem so he chooses to ignore him and return to his swimming lessons. It’s a moment not only indicating the stark class divide, but it’s also Qassem’s awakening to certain socio-political realities as well as the confinements of living outside of the city’s capital. Ahmed’s journey in Where Is the Friend’s House also evolves into a revealing portrait of Iranian society as authority figures seek to impose discipline and obedience, which ultimately get in the way of Ahmed’s altruistic endeavor.
CLOSE UP (1990)
Undoubtedly, Close Up put Kiarostami on an international stage for its meta-filmic approach as well as the way it challenges expectations and subverts traditional film language. But I’d argue that Close Up is a natural progression for Kiarostami. His interest with image-making is apparent in earlier films such as The Traveler when Qassem raises money for a bus ticket by scamming younger children out of change by taking their pictures with no film in the camera. More could be said about Close Up, but it seems like the film has been discussed and analyzed to a pulp and I doubt that I have anything new to contribute to the conversation around it, so I’ll move on.
AND LIFE GOES ON (1992)
And Life Goes On - as the title strongly suggests a sense of continuation - situates itself as part of Kiarostami’s ongoing dialectic. This time around, he literally pairs his interests of meta-cinema with the quests of child protagonists. The film’s premise is that the Filmmaker (actor) of Where Is My Friend’s House is accompanied by his son in search of the main actors of the film after a recent earthquake. Kiarostami weaves real life events of the 1990 Iranian earthquake into a soulful exploration of film, fiction, and life itself.
Like Ahmed in Where Is My Friend’s House, the Filmmaker and his son in And Life Goes On consistently ask for directions. These directions lead to traffic jams, steep hills, and at one point, a literal fissure in the earth. Traveling across repeated landscapes is a central element in all of Kiarostami’s early work and functions in a number of ways. For one, navigation evokes the sense of journey (literally and psychologically) for his protagonists. There is nice video part of the “Film Art” series on the Criterion Channel detailing the way Kiarostami makes the landscape of northern Iran and the countryside its own character. I would take this idea further and argue that the landscape not only functions as a character in itself, but it’s often an externalization of his characters’ interior landscape. The iconic zigzag path up a hill that Ahmed climbs multiple times in Where is My Friend’s House represents the extent of his physical and psychological journey as he maneuvers overwhelming orders from authority figures.
Repetitive shots of the Filmmaker’s car climbing steep hills and traveling the countryside in And Life Goes On also creates visual rhymes and a poetic lyricism within the film as well as with other films (e.g. Where is the Friend’s House and Tastes of Cherry). By revisiting these landscapes, Kiarostami continues the realities and conversations in his past films. It’s worth noting that his protagonists in almost all of his early films never arrive at their intended destinations and are still asking for directions near each film’s end. The story is about the way his protagonists travel and their encounters. Just as his protagonists never arrive, neither does Kiarostam. It’s another device that allows his films to have this quality of continuation.
The phrase And Life Goes On bears the connotation of being and continuation too - like the images of film. Kiarostami’s cinema becomes even more layered with this analogy in mind. Film is movement and the Filmmaker’s car is his vehicle of movement. The automobile is a physical extension of the filmmaker and his gaze. Kiarostami employs brechtian techniques, directing our gaze through the screen of the car’s windshield and frames of its windows. So as we contemplate the notion of film images coming and going, their passage and movement, we can understand that the Filmmaker’s car is a central subject and object of the film - as a form of camera obscura (a darkened box with an aperture for projecting the image of an external object).
To this end, the Filmmaker’s navigation mirrors our own sense of disorientation as well as offers us a sense of journey and discovery. By beginning in media res (inside the frame of a toll booth), Kiarostami’s films offer immediate immersion and the opportunity to discovery alongside his characters. Similarly, when the Filmmaker stops to ask people for directions to Koker, he also asks how they survived the earthquake. They offer their stories, all of which include the ways in which they are coping with their current situations (e.g. destroyed homes, dead family members, shattered TV screens). Kiarostami broadens the scope of the film to include the journeys and discoveries of all the people whom they encounter and for whom life goes on after catastrophe. When looking at these people through the windows of the car (camera obscura), we are made aware of the possibilities of film. On the other hand, our view is not complete. Because the people sharing directions and their stories don’t fit perfectly within the frames (sometimes cropping limbs and heads), we are made aware of the limits of film.
It’s not only Kiarostami’s style and techniques that offers an understanding of the limits of film and the responsibility of artists in making images. About halfway through And Life Goes On, the Filmmaker and his son encounter the old man from Where Is My Friend’s House. He mentions that he was given a hump and prosthetics in order look older for the role. It’s not a first that Kiarostami makes us aware of the fiction of his past work that seems like documentary. What is new however, is that the old man breaks the fourth wall of the current film, noting that the house to which he’s led the Filmmaker and the son is not is real house; his real house was destroyed by the earthquake. With the old man’s false house, Kiarostami makes us aware of our privilege as viewers. The old man has a house for the duration of the film, but when the film ceases, he must go back to living in a tent. Kiarostami affords the viewer and filmmaker the privilege of passing through by car (film) as a kind of tourist, gazing at people who have lost everything, and forces us to consider and reflect upon that privilege and the responsibility of the artist in making images.
On a personal level, I love this film for so many reasons. It has one of my most favorite scenes in cinema (i.e. when the son and the previous child actor in Where is The Friend’s House bet on the winner of the world cup - it’s a pure distillation of the film’s themes). The film also has one of the most striking images which will certainly stay with me for awhile (i.e. the son pouring warm coca cola into a baby bottle). I love that the film offers a view of the human condition that’s deliberately unfinished, that’s a humanist outlook at odds with so much suffering in the world - offering the most poignant blend of misery and optimism.
I’ve still got more Kiarostami to watch, so I’m excited to see where the conversation and journey lead.