gavin6942 After the 1990 earthquake in Iran that killed over 30,000 people, Kiarostami went to search for the stars of his previous film "Where Is the Friend's Home?". This film is a semi-fictional work based on these events, shot in a documentary-style. It shows a director (played by Farhad Kheradmand) on this journey through the country in the aftermath of the earthquake.While this is a really beautiful film with a rather simple plot, there is something a bit more than that going on. Of course, it also has something of a "meta" feel because the film references another film, thus being both that film's sequel, but also outside of it in a way.For Americans, the film also offers a very human look at tragedy. For reasons not entirely clear to me, Iran is seen as America's "enemy". This is foolish, given that the problem is the government and not actually the Iranian people. This film makes that perfectly clear, with some of the most innocent, caring folks you would ever hope to meet. Whatever caricature we are supposed to have in mind about Iran, you will not find it here.

sharky_55 When the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake hit and killed fifty thousand people, director Abbas Kiarostami made the decision to return to the Iranian village of Koker and find the little boys who were part of the cast of his earlier masterpiece, Where is the Friend's Home? It is during that trip that Kiarostami was struck by inspiration, going back to retrace his steps and film his own journey as his second entry into the eventual Koker trilogy. What follows is a surprisingly hopeful film about the vast reserves of resiliency in the face of hardship for these Iranian citizens, and how the end, life simply must go on. The events are captured in an unadorned verite style, with harsh, slightly overexposed natural light and a free camera, recalling the neorealist and non-fiction roots of Kiarostami's early career. Those familiar with his work will recognise one of his favoured shots; an extreme wide overhead, surveying the tiny car with amusement as it slowly chugs through the ravaged countryside. This is usually coupled with diegetic sound that contradicts the distance of the shot; we can hear Kiarostami (his actor) and his son right in our ears, although we are much too far away. The moment gently mocks their progress, the foolish ideal that such an insignificant machine could instantly make the arduous journey (think of that horizontal wide shot, with the gigantic, jagged cracks in the ground dwarfing their vehicle). Kiarostami used the same shot in his later masterpiece The Wind Will Carry Us, cutting deeper with his critique. Here he eventually allows his surrogate a POV shot through the windscreen, as if to consider his perspective too, but does this only further emphasise the lack of forward momentum, the fixed perspective? To truly find what he is looking for, he must exit the car and walk on his own two feet, not merely make enquiries through the window as if he was peering into a zoo exhibit. There is little artifice beyond this point, except for the bits where Kiarostami uses the film's self-reflexivity to play with ideas of cinematic representation and truth behind the screen. They bump into Mr Ruhi, who played a character in one of Kiarostami's previous films, and is now purposefully transporting a urinal to another place of need in the aftermath of the earthquake's destruction. When the director queries him on his new home, he nonchalantly replies: "Well, that was my house in the movie." The big one with the terrace was just for show. Later, though, he does complain that the film made him look older and uglier than he really is. His moment is Kiarostami's apology and admission of his past inaccuracies, of how the movies have conditioned us to make certain assumptions of the reality presented on the screen. Now he slowly but surely trudges on, remarking that even in the wake of such devastating disaster someone will still have need of a urinal - something that the director seemingly bypasses as his son runs off into the bushes. In The Wind Will Carry Us, a crew arrived in a rural village to film the imminent death ritual of an elderly woman, but found that life would not bow over so easily to their gaze. In Life, and Nothing More..., a director and his son search endlessly for two boys and the village of Koker, but do not ever find it. But what Kiarostami does find in the latter that was scarce in the former is a deeply humanist and optimistic view of life, of people not weeping and cursing at the sky, but shouldering this burden and carrying on best they can. Listen to how innocently Puya attempts to rationalise the earthquake, and how his perspective is scattered within everyone they meet: of tragedy reaffirming all that is precious in our lives. That little pearl comes from the same boy whose face is earlier emblazoned by darkness and the opening credits as they enter a tunnel, sleeping on his back and unaware of their destination. And witness the gentle beauty in the film's final shot, where Kiarostami and a stranger help one another up a winding, zig-zagging hill. Their toil across the landscape is hardly easier after all, but now the shot is not of mockery, but celebrating their compassion in the face of adversity.

desperateliving This is the transition from Kiarostami's films about children into his more adult, philosophically ponderous phase (and his bridging of the gap between characters searching on foot, as in the first of the trilogy, "Where is the Friend's Home," and within cars). As with all of Kiarostami's films, it's just beautiful to look at, not so much the way he films it (although this film continues his favorite shot of action taking place extremely far away), but what is filmed. For this reason I almost feel like I'm blinded by the director's name on the film, giving his films such high marks, because he doesn't really DO anything that you can point to. There is no startling mise-en-scene (the nature exists anyway, regardless of his camera). But he repeatedly and consistently creates a tranquil, pure, loving feeling in me. It has to do with his soul: he's putting it up there every time. Not autobiographically, but tonally. It has nothing to do with words like "craft" or "quality." The simple gesture of a child wanting to raise a grasshopper is enough for Kiarostami to be considered a great realist, an observer. And his film is a connector of people. It might sound simple to say, but for a Westerner with no real idea of what life is like in Iran -- or better, not life, but people -- the simple depiction of it that shows, "Hey, they're basically like us," is invaluable. That's the difference between artists who share what is and artists who create what isn't. And more immediately, within the film, he deals with the public tragedy as great connector, whether it's an earthquake or an act of terrorism. And for us Westerners whose first real impression of that came with 9/11, this film will ring true -- and be remarkable if we consider that things like this happen over there all the time. (Which possibly explains why our main character never seems all that shocked by anything he sees; when a woman cries for her family, he nods his head, but doesn't seem terribly affected by her tears.) One character here asks what Iran has done to anger God and cause the earthquake, but there is little religiosity in the film. Unlike certain recent American films, this film does not have a tendency toward hand-wringing and overwrought seriousness reaching toward the skies. That scene itself is understated like the entire film. The characters here are not spiritual ciphers. They're utterly practical. As with Kiarostami's two greatest films, "Close-Up" and "Taste of Cherry," the film becomes brilliant when it breaks from its placid realism into self-reference: the main character pulls out a picture of a boy who acted in the real film "Where is the Friend's Home?" and asks strangers where this real boy is, who he says played a role in the film. Is this a real earthquake? Is this actor really harmed? Is this a documentary? Is the main actor playing Kiarostami; is Kiarostami filming this from the passenger seat? Are they really out looking for this boy? But as with those two masterpieces, it's this that borders on insufferable, smirking cleverness on Kiarostami's part that makes me question the so-called honesty of his films. (I find his interviews pretentious and evasive.) Is it possible to be a self-referencing deconstructionist and reveal human truths, not just reveal "the nature of cinema," in an attempt to be the Iranian Godard? This is what lessens my enjoyment of his films, because it lowers my trust. Kiarostami asks a lot of us. "Okay, admit the first film was openly a film, but accept this as a closed film, until I tell you it's a documentary..." There are other flaws. It does get "cute" at times, as when the main character repeats his son's question at a later time ("Why is it coming out of a tap?"). And the boy seems preternaturally wise -- part of the film's "message" is not to discount kids' wisdom: the boy questions the validity of the claim that God caused the earthquake, shocking one woman that he and his father come in contact with throughout their travels. However, there is so much richness elsewhere (and I'm willing to accept that the layering of the self-reference adds to the film, even if it makes it momentarily annoying) that you can move beyond its flaws (which, honestly, I would accept pretty easily in another film; with Kiarostami you have expectations in the clouds). I'm particularly interested in the way children (and the child experience as remembered or experienced by an adult) are presented on screen, and I'm continually ecstatic that we have Kiarostami contributing to this. (That the main character's son describes one boy from "Where is the Friend's Home?" by his eyes is appropriate, as when we see him they are indeed strikingly beautiful.) The film is also an interesting comment on what happens to people after they work -- Falconetti comes to mind. And the ending is already a classic: it's like the swimming pool scene in "Nostalghia" in tone. Does what happen happen because the film has to end that way, or because of the human spirit? (This is one of the few scenes where music plays under it.) Even though the movie has no end, only a means, it moves forward like a good documentary. Even though time is not indicated (there are few, if any lapses; time is experienced, as in Tarkovsky), it moves along at a nice pace -- not so much in that the story is brisk, more in that we've settled into its own rhythm. There is no "story," only the story of film as experience. Lots of Big statements could be inferred from the film -- it's about an endless journey with no resolution to a place they don't know how to get to (college students, get your pens out) -- but I take it directly. 9/10

omegabane Unlike his earlier film, Where is the Friend's House, Abbas Kiarostami's Life, and Nothing More fails to enrapture viewers with the real life of contemporary Iran. While Friend's House was a moving film rooted in the Iranian child's sense of responsibility, Life is little more than a trumped up Iranian version of American reality TV. For the entire film, we are literally dragged along while a man, portraying Kiarostami, and his son go in search of the two young actors from Where is the Friend's House following a devastating earthquake. We accompany them as they sit in traffic jams, take side roads that seem to go nowhere, and get directions from people who don't know anything about where the roads lead. During our busy lives, we experience enough traffic jams or wrong turns without having to sit through them during a film. Along the way, the director and his son give rides to various characters, which inevitably leads to trite dialogue reminiscent of the pseudo-philosophical talk you would hear in the living room of the Big Brother house. In addition to the one-dimensional characters, the use of classical music in three different scenes of the film is completely inappropriate and throws the viewer even further out of the already palsied narrative.*** possible "spoiler" follows ***Kiarostami's choice of ending destroys his final chance at redeeming the film by failing to leave the viewer with any resolution. After leaving his son to watch the football match on TV in the tent-camp, and finding the road to Koker, the director must match his old car against a daunting hill. After several failed attempts at climbing the hill, he turns around and drives back the way he came. Naturally, the viewer assumes that he has given up finding the boys and is going to return home, but moments later we see him come back and make one more attempt at conquering the hill. This last attempt is successful, and in the final shot, we watch the car stop to pick up one final passenger and then drive off-screen in the direction of Koker. The viewer never learns whether or not the boys are alive, or even if the director makes it to Koker. While even an ending where the director gives up would not be satisfactory, leaving the film's central question unanswered makes the 95 minutes spent watching the movie an unjustifiable waste of time. In the end, the film amounts to little more than an undeveloped `reality show' with the cliché message of `it's the journey that counts.' Your time would be better spent watching the re-run of Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire.