Abbas Kiarostami isn't quite ready for his Close-Up

Close-Up contains what I think is a great and hilarious premise. The fact it is based on a true story only makes the idea even more amusing. The story involves a guy who is an impostor: he pretends to be the Iranian director Moshen Makhmalbaf (A Moment of Innocence, Khandahar, Gabbeh). He employs this ruse one day on the bus when a woman notices him reading Makhmalbaf's book The Cyclist (which, incidently, was turned into a film soon after). When asked where he got the book, the guy says he got it at a bookstore, and by the way he's the guy who wrote it. The woman is quite impressed, even as she wonders why the hell such a big-shot director would ride public transit - he says it's because he wants to get close to the people and get some ideas for his films, or something like that.

The guy manages to insinuate himself into the family. He visits the household and meets with the rest of the family, and decides he'll make a movie about them. The faux-Makhmalbaf discovers he can give any order and the family will consider it. They'd chop down the big tree from the front yard for him, just because he suspects it might get in the way of an important shot. The fake film director - but real film buff, as he's genuinely attached to Makhmalbaf's work - gets the sort of respect he could never get as his real self, an unemployed, divorced man trying to raise a child.

The reason I'm giving you so much of the "plot" is really just to warn you that just because this stuff is mentioned in the movie doesn't mean you'll actually see most of it. That's because, despite what you were led to believe, the movie isn't about what I've just talked about, but is about Abbas Kiarostami, director of this film, and his need to make a movie about this event. With the exception of a few flashbacks (such as the initial scenes on the bus) and the first sequence, involving a journalist who heads over to the house where the impostor is staying, nearly the entire movie is set in the courtroom, as the impostor faces trial for fraud, and Kiarostami films it.

It must be noted that all the major people in this story -- the family, the imposter, and Makhmalbaf himself -- are played by themselves, which makes this premise even more fantastic. The execution of this premise may have been fantastic as well, if it weren't for the pompous, self-involved jerk who directed this thing.

For some ungodly reason, Abbas Kiarostami is a director people often call great. This guy's won a Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival. This, despite the fact Where is the Friend's Home, the only other film of his I've seen, is endlessly boring. It's the sort of film which looks like a documentary with not a single shred of purpose. Basically, it was like sitting a camera down somewhere, turning it on for a while, before moving to another location to doing the same thing. Repeat this process a few times, edit all the footage together and then you can call it a movie.

Even Taste of Cherry, the Palme D'or winner, has its detractors. Roger Ebert, usually pretty reasonable about Cannes winners, gave this film one star and called it affected and deathly dull. Of course, this perversely makes me want even more to see this film, just to see if this is true.

I was able to tolerate Close-Up, mostly because, as I say, I love the premise. But the movie is still the work of a guy who is nowhere near as good as his reputation.

Who cares about Kiarostami's need to literally stick himself into the movie? It is not funny, or particularly insightful -- he just gets in the way. Why couldn't he have just filmed the story? The impostor tells a moving tale about why he did what he did, but it would have been just as great if we could actually see all the stuff he's talking about, instead of just hearing about it in the courtroom.

I know Kiarostami is basically making a meta-film -- as the VHS box says, it's a blurring of documentary and fiction, and it is, as everybody in this movie is playing themselves, and doing and saying things which I suspect really were done and said, and are in a movie which is about them being filmed by a director, who is also directing the movie we're watching right now, etc. We are constantly aware of the fact a movie is being made (including an infamous moment near the end when the sound drops out during what would otherwise be the most important scene in the film).

If Close-Up was an actual documentary, shot on the fly, then it might have worked. Because it would have been as real as it could get. But we know this is is actually a pretend-documentary about a real event. I guess this is just his style - make a movie which looks as close to real life, with all the boring, tedious bits kept in, as possible. But I don't think it particularly works. It just feels as if Kiarostami is so wrapped up in himself and his meta-film style, that he forgets how to just tell a good story. And there is a good story here -- as a commentary on people's attitudes towards filmmaking in general and the Iranian film industry in specific.

I think our fake director may not have been the only person in the room wishing he was Moshen Makhmalbaf. I have a feeling the "genuine" article may have felt the same way. After all, Makhmalbaf himself has made similar films out of the cloth of real life, only better. A Moment of Innocence, for example, was about himself -- it was about Makhmalbaf making a film of a moment in his younger days, when he stabbed a cop during a demonstration. Makhmalbaf spent some time in jail for the attack. In some genuine inspiration, the actual cop plays himself -- he gets involved in the filming, and even coaches the actor playing his younger self. In a sense, the issues raised in the film are the same as in Close-Up, except they are better portrayed. The film is more diabolical: the cop and the filmmaker have their own versions of the real events, and of course the "real" events, as shown on screen, are recreations manipulated by the director, which makes you wonder what the real truth is, etc.

Kiarostami doesn't try that hard. It's just him screwing up a good story with a bunch of self-reflexive nonsense. My rating is for the premise only. This should have been better.