:
Mania Akbari,
Amin Maher,
Roya Arabshahi,
more...
:
Abbas Kiarostami
see all cast/crew...
: Not Rated
: Zeitgeist
: Drama, Foreign, Middle East, Experimental/Avant-Garde, Iran
: 92 min.
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Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami uses the casual setting of one woman's automobile as the setting for a subtle but potent look at gender issues in the Middle East. Mania Akbari plays a nameless woman who, over the course of several days, gives a number of friends, family members, and acquaintances a ride in her car across town, among them her young son who is still upset over his parent's recent divorce; her sister; a close friend who has just been abandoned by her boyfriend; an older woman on her way to a worship service; another friend soon to be married; and a veteran streetwalker. As the woman and her passengers ride through Tehran, their conversations cast a light on her views of herself, as well as the ways other women view themselves and the larger world around them. Director Kiarostami shot Ten using two small digital video cameras, one of which was mounted on the car's dashboard, the other in a fixed position in the back seat, using this purposefully stark approach to keep the focus on the characters and their ideas. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Includes the brand-new Kiarostami documentary 10 on Ten.
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| Iran, mirrored via a woman driving around in her car
by talltale
June 15, 2005 - 5:09 AM PDT
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5 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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I suppose Abbas Kiarostami is an acquired taste. (Film critic Roger Ebert doesn't even grant him that much.) With TEN--the writer/director's series of ten short video-taped segments of an Iranian woman's life as she drives around the city in her car--he has come up with an unusual and eventually (if oddly) riveting movie. In the course of the film, your feelings about this woman will probably change (as she herself seems to), while you grow to understand her and her life. You'll meet her friend, her son, a prostitute, and other interesting folk who, together, give you some idea of present-day Iran.
Kiarostami'style--simple, direct and pertinent--may turn some of you off, but keep watching and listening: The rewards are here--if you can begin to care about and pay attention to a part of the world that is increasingly impacting on ours. Certain things may surprise and/or annoy: Is the behavior of the children--whiny, stubborn, selfish and mouthy--unique to directors like Kiarostami and Panahi, or to Iran in general? Yet even these quirks enrich the movie and, one hopes, our understanding of Iran.
If the DVD you receive also includes the director's "master class in cinema" (called "10 on Ten"), give it a watch. I learned a good deal more about Kiarostami, his reasoning and his technique from this lengthy but worthwhile additional feature. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.49)
45 Votes
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