Top five Abbas Kiarostami movies

"Someone told me that my characters are all abnormal. In one way or another, they all deviate from the norm, from the child in 'The Traveler' to Mr. Firoozkuhi in 'The Report' to Hussein Sabzain in 'Close Up' or Hussein of 'Through the olive trees', I realize that, I'm drawn into unique people, unintendedly. Since we can't put every single person in front of camera, we have to look for special people or ordinary people in unusual circumstances."

Through the years, Abbas Kiarostami has been compared to Satyajit Ray, Vittorio de Sica and Jacques Tati by film critics. But that doesn't mean that Kiarostami's works are derivative. Abbas Kiarostami has experimented the boundary between reality and fiction throughout his four-decade career. The cinema poet used different directing method for each of his cinema. Take Ten, Close Up and Certified Copy for instance. While filming Ten, the director wasn't even present. He placed a camera in a moving automobile, gave suggestions to the actors about what to do while driving around Tehran. Again, in Certified Copy, he explored marriage and how the relationship between husband and wife changes over time. Though the film tries to depict a completely different philosophy from Before Trilogy, the direction bears striking resemblances with it. Whereas in Close Up, Kiarostami tries to show us a movie buffs misery and social inequity in a semi documentary.

The poetic director constantly tried to come up with uncommon directing methods. In Kiarostami's first film, The bread and the alley, he contradicted his experienced cinematographer about how to film the boy and the attacking dog. Instead of taking separate shots of the boy approaching, a close up of his hand as he enters the house and closes the door, followed by a shot of the dog, Kiarostami wanted to take three different shots in one take. He believed it would be more compelling and have profound impact on the audience, which later on took forty days to shoot.

"I think a good film is one that has a lasting power, and you start to reconstruct right after you left the theatre. There are a lot of films that seem to be boring, but they are decent films. On the other hand, there are films that nail you to your seat and overwhelm to the point that you forget everything, but you feel cheated later."

We have seen reflection of this quote by Kiarostami in most of his works, specifically in The Koker trilogy and The wind will carry us. As the director said, that many viewers might leave the theatre unsatisfied, but Abbas knows that they'll be talking about it on dinner. And you won't have the slightest idea when it'll strike you, that's what art is, that's what cinema is.

Here are the top 5 Kiarostami films in my opinion.

Close Up: Nonfiction wrapped with non-fiction, documentary under the wraps of cinema. Close Up undoubtedly is one of the greatest films of all time. Kiarostami shot the miseries of a second-class citizen who committed fraud in order to get dignity and directed the film based on true story with the very same people engaged. Close up talks about, passion for cinema, dignity in a meta fictional manner.

 Ten: Certainly Kiarostami's most audacious work set in Iran. So beautifully edited that each scene seems to be taken in a single shot. Kiarostami has proved in his other spectacles how interesting he can make a conversation taking place inside cars, this time he shot an entire film of a woman driving around Tehran with a car having conversations still making it so engaging you can barely even pause.

Taste of Cherry: Anyone who has seen that shot of Mr. Badi's shadow enveloped by the golden hue of the fallen earth, knows Kiarostami's genius. In Taste of Cherry, the frames speak more than the actors. Mr. Badi doesn't cry once, or deliver emotional dialogues, we still manage to understand Mr. Badi's pain, a pain so deep that he prefers death over it. Taste of Cherry is one of those films that show people that art isn't meaningless. It is one of those films that observes life so meticulously that it makes you start considering cinema itself a part of life, a mirror of life.

And Life Goes On : Life and nothing more is a follow up to Where is my friend's house. Even though all of them are meta textual, and related, each of his films are so much different than the other. One deals with a philosophical theme, the other does a social commentary. In Life and Nothing more, Kiarostami discovers a simplistic yet a crucial lesson about life, which is, and life goes on!

Through the olive trees: Third installment of the Koker trilogy and second to make the list. Meta film has been perfected in Through the olive trees. Through the olive trees opens up another fractal layer in his multifaceted metafictional universe. 

"Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Kiarostami" - Jean Luc Godard.