It’s been six years since Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and I published Abbas Kiarostami (University of Illinois Press), about Iran’s most famous and most controversial filmmaker. The book combined the perspectives of myself, an American film critic with a Jewish background, and Mehrnaz, an Iranian-American filmmaker and teacher with an Islamic background, on Kiarostami’s films, which are neither narrative features nor documentaries but something in between. Where Is the Friend’s House? (1986), Close-Up (1990), Life and Nothing More . . . (1992), Through the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997), and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) keep altering the balance between what’s actually seen in a story and what’s implied or imagined, and this is part of what continues to make Kiarostami such a contested and fascinating figure. Building, perhaps, on his talent as a visual artist (he’s a photographer, painter, and graphic artist) and his interest as a chronicler of Iranian life, he’s been a nearly constant innovator in both form and subject matter.
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Although I’ve seen Five on a big screen in Toronto, I think it works far better as a chamber piece to experience at home. I’m less certain about Shirin, which so far Mehrnaz and I have seen only in our respective homes. It premiered last year in Venice and has more commercial names attached to it than any other Kiarostami film—Juliette Binoche and 112 of Iran’s leading actresses. (By contrast, practically all the actors in all of Kiarostami’s previous films have been nonprofessionals.) But the stars are seen only as members of the audience at a film screening, and the film they’re supposed to be watching—based on a well-known Persian legend and medieval epic poem about a love triangle—is never seen, only heard. That’s because the film doesn’t actually exist: the actresses, along with the rest of the audience (men and women), were filmed in Kiarostami’s living room, where they followed his instructions. The whole thing, like so much of Kiarostami’s work, is an illusionist tour de force.
What follows is a conversation Mehrnaz and I had about Shirin, transcribed and edited for publication. —Jonathan Rosenbaum
MS Yes, I believe it’s Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968).
MS Yes, there’s always this isolation. You never see more than two or three people at a time—except for just one shot that shows us four.
MS It’s funny, but this film seems to go out of its way to contradict what we think a Kiarostami film is. All the others are mixtures of documentary and fiction, but this one is only fiction. Unless you think of those close-ups as if they were screen tests. Because there are moments when those actresses don’t seem to be in total control over their own faces.
But when Kiarostami was asked why he opted for an “all-female cast,” he replied, “Because women are beautiful, complicated, and sensational,” and then added, “besides, women are more passionate. Being in love is part of their definition.” Which to me almost sounds like David O. Selznick.
