Close-Up (1990 film)

Close-Up (Persian: کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک, Klūzāp, nemā-ye nazdīk) is a 1990 Iranian docufiction written, directed and edited by Abbas Kiarostami. The film tells the story of Hossein Sabzian, a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and conned a family into believing they would star in his new film.^[1] The director received permission to film the historic trial; with their agreement, he featured the people involved in re-enacting certain events that had proceeded that. All "play" themselves. Through this work about human identity, Kiarostami gained wider international recognition.

Close-Up
DVD cover
کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک
Directed by	Abbas Kiarostami
Written by	Abbas Kiarostami
Produced by	Ali Reza Zarrin
Starring	Hossain Sabzian Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Cinematography	Ali Reza Zarrindast
Edited by	Abbas Kiarostami
Production company	Kanoon
Distributed by	Celluloid Dreams
Release date	1990 (1990)
Running time	98 min.
Country	Iran
Language	Persian

Close Up (1990)

Close-Up is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time; in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, it was voted by critics as one of "The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time".^[2] In the 2022 Sight and Sound critics' poll, it was rated the 17th greatest film of all time.

Story

Hossain Sabzian is a cinephile, and in particular a big fan of popular Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. One day, Sabzian is riding a bus with a copy of a published screenplay of the director's The Cyclist. A woman named Mrs. Ahankhah sits next to him, and reveals that she is a fan of the film. Sabzian tells her that he himself is Makhmalbaf, the creator, and learns that her sons are also interested in film.

Posing as Makhmalbaf, Sabzian visits the Ahankhah family several times over the next two weeks. He flatters them by saying he wants to use their house in his next film and their sons as actors. He also borrows 1,900 tomans from one of the sons for cab fare. The father, Mr. Ahankhah, starts to suspect him as an imposter trying to rob them, especially when he sees a magazine photograph showing Makhmalbaf as a younger man with darker hair. He invites a journalist, Hossain Farazmand, to the house, who confirms that Sabzian is indeed an impostor.

The police come to arrest Sabzian, and Farazmand takes several pictures for his upcoming article, to be titled "Bogus Makhmalbaf Arrested".^[3]

Kiarostami visits Sabzian in prison and helps to advance the date of his trial, also receiving permission from the judge to film the trial. Sabzian is tried on charges of fraud and attempted fraud. He testifies that he posed as Makhmalbaf because of his deep love for the man's film and cinema as art. He says that he feels seen in his own suffering through these films. Ahankhah's son recounts Sabzian's visits as the family started to suspect him as an impostor.

Given that Sabzian is a young father with no prior record and expresses remorse for his actions, the judge asks the family if they would be willing to pardon Sabzian. They agree in exchange for Sabzian's commitment to become a productive member of society.

After the trial, the director Makhmalbaf meets Sabzian and gives him a ride to the Ahankhahs' house; Kiarostami's crew follows. When they meet Mr. Ahankhah again, he says of Sabzian: "I hope he'll be good now and make us proud of him."

Cast

• Hossain Sabzian as himself
• Mohsen Makhmalbaf as himself
• Abbas Kiarostami as himself
• Abolfazl Ahankhah as himself
• Mehrdad Ahankhah as himself
• Monoochehr Ahankhah as himself
• Mahrokh Ahankhah as herself
• Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi as himself, the Judge
• Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi as herself
• Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni as himself, a family friend
• Hossain Farazmand as himself, a reporter
• Hooshang Shamaei as himself, a Taxi Driver
• Mohammad Ali Barrati as himself, a Soldier
• Davood Goodarzi as himself, a Sergeant
• Hassan Komaili as himself, a Court Recorder
• Davood Mohabbat as himself, a Court Recorder

^[4]

Notes

The film refers to Kiarostami's previous films, including the 1974 football drama The Traveler (considered by the director to be his first 'authentic' feature).^[5]

It also mentions The Cyclist, a 1987 sports drama film made by Mohsen Makhmalbaf three years prior to Kiarostami's Close-Up.

Production

Close-Up is based on actual events that occurred in Northern Tehran in the late 1980s. Kiarostami first heard about Sabzian in 1989 after reading about the incident in an article in the Iranian magazine Sorush by journalist Hassan Farazmand. Kiarostami immediately suspended work on the film project for which he was in pre-production.

Taken by the figure of the impostor, he began making a documentary on Sabzian. Kiarostami was allowed to film Sabzian's trial. He gained the agreement of Sabzian, the Ahankhahs, and journalist Farazmand to participate in the film and to re-enact past incidents. Kiarostami also arranged for director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to meet Sabzian and help facilitate forgiveness between Sabzian and the Ahankhah family.^[6]

Critical reception

When the film opened in Iran, reviews were almost uniformly negative. The film gained its first appreciation abroad.^[6] The New York Times film critic Stephen Holden called the film "brilliant," noting its "radically drab cinema-verite style that helps blur any difference between what is real and what is reconstructed."^[7]

In 2010 Los Angeles Times critic Dennis Lim described the film as eloquent and direct and said that it provided "a window into the psyche of a complicated man and into the social and cultural reality of Iran."^[8] In 2022, the film was ranked as #17 in the British Film Institute's critics' poll of BFI The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time.

Influence

Five years after Close-Up, Moslem Mansouri and Mahmoud Chokrollahi wrote and directed the documentary Close-Up Long Shot (Persian: کلوزآپ نمای دور, Klūzāp nemā-ye dūr). It features Sabzian talking about his infatuation with cinema, his impersonation of Makhmalbaf, and how his life has changed since working with Kiarostami. The film premiered at Turin's 14° Festival internazionale cinema giovani in November 1996, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize – Special Mention.^[9][10]

Nanni Moretti's Italian short film Opening Day of Close-Up (1996) follows a theater owner as he prepares to show Kiarostami's film at his independent cinema.

Marcus Söderlund's 2007 music video for Swedish duo The Tough Alliance's "A New Chance" pays homage to Kiarostami's film. It has an almost shot-for-shot reproduction of a scene following two characters on a motorcycle.^[11]

In an interview for the Criterion edition of the 2019 film Rolling Thunder Revue, director Martin Scorsese cites Kiarostami as his main influence.

In 2012, filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia included the film in his personal top ten (for The Sight & Sound Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time poll), writing: "A re-enactment of a re-enactment of a re-enactment, Close Up essentially destroys the very conception of a 'documentary' and yet is one of the best ever made."^[12]

Aftermath

In 2006, Hossain Sabzian died at age 52 after suffering a heart attack. He suffered respiratory failure on the Tehran metro in August, slipped into a coma, and died on September 29.^[6][13]

Trivia

• In the first scene, en route to the Ahankah family, Hossain Farazmand tells taxi driver Hooshang Shamaei about the "Oriana story", referring to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci's tendencies to dig up stories about the most exclusive topics. He also mentions other internationally notable reporters Peter Bogdanovich and John Edisson.

Awards

• 1990: Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and Video: Quebec Film Critics Award
• 1992: International Istanbul Film Festival: FIPRESCI Prize

See also

• F for Fake (1973) – the last major film completed by Orson Welles, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in the film. It is loosely classified as a documentary and spans several different genres. It has been described as a kind of film essay.
• Hello Cinema (1995) – an Iranian docufiction film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf shows various everyday people being auditioned and explaining their reasons for wanting to act in a film.
• Colour Me Kubrick (2005) – a British film directed by Brian W. Cook is the true story of a man who pretended to be director Stanley Kubrick, a similar premise to this film.
• List of docufiction films
• Metafilm