1/3 Forms of Realism in Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990) - Film Secession

Описание: In the culminating sequence of Close-Up (1990), Abbas Kiarostami transforms what could be an infinitely recurring mise-en-abîme into an extraordinary movement towards deeper understanding. Neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini famously said, "To get at reality, you need tricks." For Kiarostami, this means using gaps in sound recording and clearly staged shifts in camera angle to create an impression of spontaneous discovery.

In our portrait films, both Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Ryūsuke Hamaguchi describe Kiarostami as one of two contemporary Asian filmmakers to exert a formative influence. The other is Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien.

With varying degrees of acknowledgment, both Hou and Kiarostami reworked the paradigms of Italian Neorealism, treating the work of directors like Rossellini as models to be worked through rather than simply emulated.

Hou's greatest films interrogate the complex history of Taiwan and the ruptures created by the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, which radically transformed the history of the region. In this respect, the under-rated Good Men, Good Women (1995,    • 2/3 - Shapes of History in Good Men, Good ...  ), a documentary/fiction hybrid about the creation of a fictional film derived from the narrated experiences of 1940s resistance fighters, is representative. Hou regards both the leftist idealism of the 1940s and the materialist narcissism of the 1990s with equanimity, using formal devices (camera position and movement, alternations between black-and-white and color) to set up distinctions that are blurred by the mirroring structure of the narrative.

In Syndromes and a Century (2006), Apichatpong combines elements of both approaches, and of the methods of the Surrealists, in a new way. The enigmatic ending (   • 3/3 - Movement in Syndromes and a Century ...  ) once again demonstrates that it is the difficulty of capturing an always shifting reality that creates opportunities for renewal.

Discover the films, watch the portraits, and learn more on Film Secession. Follow the links below.

About Film Secession:
https://www.filmsecession.com/about-us

Hamaguchi on Hou:
https://www.filmsecession.com/exhibit...

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Exhibition:
https://www.filmsecession.com/exhibit...

1. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990, Iran)
2. Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1995, Taiwan/Japan,    • 2/3 - Shapes of History in Good Men, Good ...  )
3. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006, Thailand/Austria,    • 3/3 - Movement in Syndromes and a Century ...  )

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