This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Hossain Sabzian Monoochehr Ahankhah Mahrokh Ahankhah Abolfazl Ahankhah Mehrdad Ahankhah Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi Hossain Farazmand Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni Hooshang Shamaei Mohammad Ali Barrati Davood Goodarzi Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi Hassan Komaili Davood Mohabbat Hassan Farazmand Hushang Shahai Mohsen Makhmalbaf Abbas Kiarostami
Nema-ye Nazdik, Primer plano, Close-up, کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک, کلوزآپ, Kelozap, 클로즈 업, 클로즈-업, 클로즈업, Yakın Plan, 特写, Крупный план, Close Up, クローズ・アップ, Великий план
USANR
Iran
Canada
FranceU
USA
USA
Canada
France
Iran
USA
100/100
Cinema, even within its immaculate bursts of truth, is a realm of masks and modest deceit. The mystical aura of the screen is the equivalent of a magician's assistant, cluttering and distracting the audience from the formation of the tapestry of the entire experience. Close-up, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, is a stirring deconstruction of cinema and its various influences on society and its audience. With natural and affecting "performances", a faultless sense of editing, and a monstrously quintessential view on the power of moving images; Close-up is simply one of the greatest films ever made (maybe even THE greatest) and one of most extraordinary viewing experiences that I've ever had.
For a film to weave fact and fiction so…
100
"We'd like to film this trial. Is that all right with you?"
"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."
from IndieWire's 100 best movies of the '90s list.
not gonna log all the blurbs i wrote for that, but just wanted to share a few quick thoughts on a handful of all-time favorites i may not have written about before. ok thx
A poor, overlooked movie obsessive who only feels seen by the neo-realism of his country’s national cinema pretends to be his favorite director, a farce that allows Hossain Sabzian to savor the dignity and importance that Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s films had allowed him to taste. When a Tehran journalist uncovers the ruse — the police arresting the harmless impostor while he’s inside the home of the affluent Iranian family where he “wanted to shoot his next film” —…
Close-Up is pretty damn flawless. It is a minimalistic yet nothing short of unique, humanistic, sad and layered work of empathy, understanding; a film about film, art and how it affects us. About wanting to be someone you're not. It is a film difficult to describe and classify, but what Kiarostami achieves by subverting genre in his storytelling is remarkable. Sabzian's film obsession is very relatable, his little speeches in the court room gets to me. And what a beautiful, beautiful ending with the most gorgeous piece of music, can't really get better than that. That last freeze-frame. Magic. Masterpiece. How was this even made?
A beautifully bare-boned film that I can truly say is unlike anything I’ve seen. Probably not for everyone but the story is soo damn interesting to me. I’ll leave it at that.
I’m also just realizing this was my 69th out of 100 films this summer and I totally regret not wathing ‘Love’ instead.
My friends, what is the greater crime? That this man claimed to be Mohsen Makhmalbaf? Or that, having been born poor, he was predestined to never even have the chance to become Mohsen Makhmalbaf?
“Better king for a night than shmuck for a lifetime!”
The act of watching films is almost laughable in its strangeness. For a couple of hours we believe that the people onscreen actually exist, and their stories have the power to move us in ways that stories in real life cannot.
Close-Up is about a man who impersonates a director he admires. He carries out in real life the same conceit that films do, except this time nobody knows subconsciously that he's just pretending. There was never a moment when I was sure that I was watching a documentary or a film.
The film eschews all traditional methods of storytelling to focus almost exclusively on brilliant, self-aware dialogue. At the beginning of the film, the impersonator, Hossain Sabzian, asks the…
