Close-up (1990)

Close-Up, directed by Abbas Kiarostami is a goofy film that plays with the medium of film on about a thousand different levels. In some cases, I have problems with that kind of approach (it can get self-indulgent) but this film was enjoyable to an extent I couldn't predict. So here we go: the film is based on real events but it's is a fiction film, a mocumentary, but oh wait, the actors play themselves. The story is about a man who impersonates the famous film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. In this way, he gets in touch with a family, who all think that the guy is making some movie, in which they will act. But soon enough they start suspecting that he is not who he appears to be, and they call the police. He is detained, and tried. The film follows the trial and in the end of the film we see fake-Makhmalbaf together with the real deal Makhmalbaf. No, it doesn't get self-important.

It's a funny film with lots of stuff to admire: the whole thing works splendidly - most of all Kiarostami's direction. I'm not sure how he persuaded the deceived people to participate in the film, but their acting (or whatever we call it) is great.

The film poses questions about the nature of acting (how can it NOT?), questions that have philosophical depth: what does it mean to act? How is acting different from impersonating, and is impersonating and acting the same as pretending? And how is it different from fraud? What does it mean to appear as a specific person and that people believe that you are that person, what kind of responsibility is involved here? These questions arise in connection with the entire idea of the film, to let people play themselves doing stuff they really did do (to some extent), at the same time as the film also was created through improvisation. But these questions is also tackled in the story itself, where we are led into a number of conversations about identity and, you guessed it, identity theft. And then you will also be encouraged to muse about the concept of identification.

But then again this is also a story about why the guy impersonated Makhmalbaf, what kind of problems he was haunted by and what kind of attitude he takes to himself and the people he encounters. It's a sad story about escaping oneself to pretend to be somebody else.

If you intend to watch one hyper-reflective film-about-film-about-film, watch Close-up. And don't miss the last couple of scenes, where you find yet another goofy use of the technique of film that makes you attend to the art of film-making itself. But I hope my review did not give the impression that the film is engrossed in technical jokes. This is not at all the case. Kiarostami is rather preoccupied with moral questions about responsibility.