Close-Up (Film)

1990. Dir: Abbas Kiarostami.


Context:
In the Autumn of 1989, after just having made Homework, Kiarostami was planning to make a similar documentary this time focusing on children and pocket money. However, shortly before filming was scheduled to start on that project, Kiarostami read a newspaper article about the case of a man accused of impersonating Mohsen Makhmalbaf with the intention of swindling a well-off Tehran family (the Ahankhahs). This article completely fascinated Kiarostami and immediately mobilised him into cancelling the pocket money film and calling (the real) Makhmalbaf to discuss a new project.
Both men agreed to work together, and visited Tehran's Ghasr Prison meet the man (Hossein Sabzian, an unemployed print worker and huge film fan), and convince him and the Ahankhah family to appear in a film, as well as the judicial authorities who also needed convincing since the trial was still taking place.
Kiarostami ended up filming the tribunal hearing, with two 16mm cameras, not knowing for certain at the time whether this could really make a worthwhile film. Said Kiarostami of the film: "This is a film that made itself, which came about completely naturally... I shot the film during the day and made notes at night. There wasn't much time to think, and when it was finished, I watched the film like any other spectator because it was new even to me. I think it's something completely different from anything I've done before."
Sabzian had a deep sense of identification with Makhmalbaf, especially due to his film's concerns with the fate of those dispossessed and neglected by society. Ali Sabzian's great admiration for Makhmalbaf points to the broad mass appeal that Makhmalbaf's films enjoyed in Iran at the time. Makhmalbaf himself comes from a poor background; men like him formed the vanguard of the Islamic Revolution.
He also (as we see in the film) has a strong sense of identification with the protagonist of Kiarostami's first full feature The Traveller. This links Sabzian to a long history of similar and typical Kiarostami protagonists (lost, neglected young men who are dispossessed on the margins of society but still display impressive resourcefulness, e.g. those in the shorts or medium-length Bread and Alley, The Wedding Suit or Experience as well to the boy in The Traveller, and more loosely it also links Sabzian to the boy in Where is the Friend's Home?). In a sense then, Kiarostami had found his archetypal protagonist in a real-life person. Although, there are differences too; for instance none of the earlier characters took the time to stop and feel sorry for themselves, the way Sabzian does when he gives a speech about how wretched his life is.

The film:

• Kiarostami has said of the film: "The main issue raised by the film is the need that people feel, whatever their material circumstances, for respect and social recognition... Ultimately, what the film is dealing with is the difference between the 'ideal self' and the 'real self'; the greater the difference the more unbalanced the person."
• The use of close-ups of Sabzian in the trial sequence not only resonate with the film's title, but offer an identification device for the audience to empathise with Sabzian, and to attempt to understand him and get in his mind.
• The film 'persona' and the real-life persona of Sabzian are of course different (as could be said of any documentary character but perhaps a touch more so in this case) and this must be noted. It is Kiarostami's shaping of the serendipitous material that makes Sabzian a universal figure, making us feel for him and him resonate ideas about many differing grand themes (personal, societal and about the transformative quality of cinema/art itself). In this sense Sabzian, the film character, truly transcends Sabzian the man and becomes a character who can live forever, like a Dostoyevskian character, standing for so much more than one specific human could.
• The Ahankhahs were also (or thought they were) using Sabzian, when they thought he was Makhmalbaf and would cast them in his film. The boost to their egos this provided came at a time when their family happened to be just in need of such a shot-in-the-arm, as they have their own share of problems. On closer inspection, nobody in the film is happy with who they are or what they do, including the sons of the Ahankhah family and even the journalist in the opening scene, who is desperate to become some sort of respectable investigative journalist. The film thus reflects a wider societal trend in Iran at the period, one of unhappy people who cannot find or form their ideal selves.
• A large part of the trial was recreated, when the judge had already left. Kiarostami described this tactic as "one of the biggest lies I have allowed myself to tell".
• The film makes use of the score from The Traveller, composed by Kambiz Roshanravan, towards the end when Sabzian and Makhmalbaf are travelling to the Ahankhah home on a motorbike.

Reception:

• The initial domestic reception was poor. Certain critics even attacked on political grounds, while others called it a mere publicity stunt for Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf.
• International, it was first welcomed to a positive response in France. In 1996, Nanni Moretti would make it the subject of a short film.

References:
Elena, The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, 82-.