IJARED 4(1), 69-78 © The Author(s) 2016 [email protected] www.ijaredonline.com ISSN:2348-3342

Poetry in Motion: Philosophy and Perspectives of Abbas Kiarostami’s Films Dr. Abdul Muneer V Assistant Professor of Journalism, EMEA College of Arts and Science, Kondotti, Kerala.

Abstract: An apostle of poetic cinema, Abbas Kiarostami blends music, words and frames to build poetic narratives with camera. He was much influenced by the Italian neo-realism and the rich Persian poetry. Poetic realism is achieved in Kiarostami’s films by adopting minimal plots and non-narrative stories. This article tries to examine the various aspects of Kiarostami’s film making, such as his philosophy and outlook, influences and inspirations, theme selection and casting, and other elements in a qualitative manner. Review of literature is extensively used for this study.

Introduction

Wearing dark sunglasses, car-centred scenes, colours and shades of Persian poetry, beautiful blend of reality and fantasy, shooting without any script, casting of non-professional actors, the extensive use of panoramic long shots, the recurring presence of zigzagging roads, minimal plots with non dramatic style and inviting viewers to complete the narrative and so on are the trademarks of a legendary filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami.

The most eminent filmmaker to emerge out of Iran in the past several decades is Abbas Kiarostami (Kupsc, 2010). Born in Tehran in 1940, he graduated from university in fine arts and started his career as graphic designer. Before becoming a full-fledged filmmaker, he directed short films as well as ad. films and he is a poet as well. While he was actively involved in designing posters, drawing illustrations for children’s books and making of advertising films, he was asked to start a film section at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in 1969. Thus, at the age of 30, he started his odyssey as a sensible and sensitive, poetic and philosophical, creative and iconic film maker.

Man of poetic cinema, he blends music and words as well as visual and special movements which are the very ingredients of the art of cinema. Since International Journal for Advanced Research in Emerging Disciplines (IJARED) he writes with camera, the differences with director and author become irrelevant (Sheibani, 2006).

Kiarostami exists in a cultural setting which has a rich tradition of literature, particularly story-telling. Persian story telling had got wider acceptance globally even before the entry of Persian cinema. In the 1990s Iran has been recognised as one of the most sought-after exporters of cinema in the world. As Kiarostami notes, apart from oil, carpets, pistachio nuts, Iran’s exports now include films (Rosen, 1992). Comparing to Italian neorealism, cinema critics now mark Iran as the most significant national cinema and because of its artistic qualities it is recognised widely in many recent international film festivals. After the revolution, the lift of religious ban on viewing films has accelerated the process and cultivated a new viewing audience and culture. Now Iranian film buffs show an extraordinary crave for cinema (Rosen, 1992). How did Kiarostami end up in filmmaking? What are his sources of influence and inspiration?

Sepehri, Farrokhzad and others

As other Persian artists, Kiarostami’s heroes also include Truffaut and Rosellini, and he also has the passion in narrative story-telling and showed same interest in depending on rich experience and the same rejection towards narrow cultural nationalism and identities. As a filmmaker, he was much influenced by the Italian neo-realist screen writer Cesare Zavattini and his philosophy that the point of storytelling in the movies wasn’t to invent but to discover. He has found out several similarities between the cultural political settings in post revolution-Iran and of post war-Italy (Aufderheide, 1995).

Traditional Iranian poets have exerted great influence on Kiarostami. The names include the romantic poet Omar Khayyam, Sohrab Sepehri and Farrukh Farukhzad (Giovacchini, 2006). His poetic approach to filmmaking owes much to Iranian New Wave filmmakers such as Dariush Mehrjuei and Sohrab Shahid Sales. He has revealed once that their film, A Simple Event had influenced much in moulding a poetic filmmaker in him. His deep dependence on Persian poetry is obvious in titling of his films. He selected the titles for his two most acclaimed movies, that are, The Wind Will Carry Us

70 International Journal for Advanced Research in Emerging Disciplines (IJARED) and Where Is the Friend’s House from two noted poems by Farrokhzad and Sepehri respectively (Sheibani, 2006).

The aesthetics of Kiarostami’s films draws much on the aesthetics of modern Persian poetry. De-politicised poetry of above mentioned poets, such as, Forough Farrokhzad and Sohrab Sepheri impacted much on his perception of reality. Thus, he put forward aesthetics in everyday life by utilising his special style of non-manipulative film stylistics. Modern Persian poets put forward a novel world view and Kiarostami gives due credit to this school of poets for his different/lateral thinking in filmmaking (Sheibani, 2006).

Apart from poetries, Kiarostami has hundreds of small sources of inspiration. He opens his eyes and mind to the routine happenings of daily life. He realized that real life is more important than cinema and fantasy. He explained once it in an interview how a mother and her baby moved him much. In a snowy day while he was going to work he saw a mother holding a small baby walking down the street. The baby was burning up with fever and its eyes were nearly closed and so swollen up. He thought the child couldn’t even see him. But, when he reached nearby the mother, the baby pulled out his hand and waved back at him with great effort and pain. It shocked him and he decided that the moments like these should be shared with the audience (Aufderheide, 1995).

Philosophy and perspectives

Being the philosopher of today, Kiarostami relies on Persian poetic perceptions to put forward his philosophy of life through a poetic visual language. He believes in the power of “now” and sees life in all hues and tones. To him, life is like swimming in the present, little pond which is disconnected from the past or future. The pond concept of living present was conceived and borrowed from his favourite poet, Sepehri. Further he believes that there is no objective meaning to this world, instead the so- called objectivity merely stems from our subjective perception of reality (Sheibani, 2006). In his view, the real and realistic filmmakers have always the same issues and concerns. It’s highly subjective and remains same always. If they take filmmaking seriously, they are going to deal with same concerns (Rosen, 1992).

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Kiarostami doesn’t give much importance to the physical presence of some characters. He believes that the viewers don’t need to see all characters. Instead, they should feel them. This principle underlies that there is a possibility of being without being (www.imdb.com).

The conflict between art and politics has been debated all over the world. Iran is no exception. Kiarostami perceives that art and politics are complementary and should go together. When one of them doesn’t act properly, the other will take over and grabs more people (Rosen, 1992). To him, creating unity between worlds is more important. It is the duty of politics (authorities) to create borders for convenience, but it is the noble duty of artists to reduce or eliminate them (Aufderheide, 1995). In this ever revolving conflict between art and politics, art should have an upper hand. The same view is depicted in his many movies. For example, In Close-Up, he describes the face to face encounter of art and law (politics). He argues that law makers and authorities do not have enough time to look in to the eyes and hearts of the human being. But art has more time, patience and heart (Vatulescu, 2011). The film is also a close-up of the Iranian society. This closeness to reality is the salient, significant feature of today’s Iranian films.

Further, his philosophy of life is portrayed through the characters of the movie, Close-Up. He disclosed it in an interview that he could see himself in all the characters in the film. He sees himself lying, and, at the same time, he sees himself being lied to by other people. Sometimes he does the same thing as Sabzian (the lead character) when he is unhappy with himself. He’d like to be someone else. He’s even copied someone else’s poems and said that he’s the one who wrote them (Rosen, 1992).

Camera Pen, the poetic approach

As mentioned earlier, a poetic realism is achieved in Kiarostami’s films by adopting minimal plots and non-narrative stories. By employing of depth of focus and long takes, aesthetic realism is also achieved in his films which is a non-manipulative method of filmmaking that opposed to seamless reality. As Meyhan Bahrami suggested this aesthetic realism gives his films an Iranian aura in tune with Persian poetry. By adopting this approach, Kiarostami underlines the concept of camera pen postulated by Alexandre Astruc (Sheibani, 2006). The very approach highlights the beauty of poetry

72 International Journal for Advanced Research in Emerging Disciplines (IJARED) meets photography. He has described his notable film Five as the crossroads between photography, poetry and cinema (Giovacchini, 2006). He trusted more on camera than his script. That is why; he wanted his films to become more closer to his photography than his techniques of storytelling (Balaghi & Shadid, 2001).

The dividing line between fiction and documentary is not clear in his filmmaking (Rosen, 1992). He always embraced the method of documentary making where his camera does not simply capture action. As he always preferred nonprofessional actors, particularly children, they didn’t act in front of camera; instead, they just tried to be themselves (Vatulescu, 2011). Majority of films are a fusion between the two genres of documentary and feature film. For example, Through the Olive Trees is a narration of real life in a documentary manner. The very lively moments of life are depicted in the routine life of the residents of Koker, especially the actual moments of interaction between Hosein and Tahreh, the hero and heroine of the film (Sheibani, 2006). His another favourite, Close-Up also proves his craft of interpenetrating fact and fiction in everyday life (Aufderheide, 1995).

He doesn’t subscribe to the manipulative method of symbolisation in films. He never used semiotics in a purposeful manner, just for the sake of using it. In a society, where exists a kind of repression, the artists use signs, symbols and metaphors to communicate their ideas and ideologies. They use such symbols in a notion that the public will decode them and the government won’t. Kiarostami is against this conscious and deliberate use of symbols. He says that such kind of expression only gets interesting for him when it comes from his unconscious (Rosen, 1992). He always looks at the positive side of everyday life than the negative (Aufderheide, 1995). Further, he derives his story threads not from short stories or novels but from thick experience of his life or others. He always tries to turn into film things he has felt or experienced (Cutler, 2011).

The nature is like a character in Kiarostami films. In his majority of films, Iranian country side is not a back drop but exists as a character. For example, in his movie The Wind Will Carry Us, the landscapes, the trees touching the hillside, the stalks of wheat delicately dancing in wind, the contrasting colours of sky and earth and so on are appearing as characters in long and lengthy wide shots (Balaghi & Shadid, 2001). The rural space

73 International Journal for Advanced Research in Emerging Disciplines (IJARED) depicted in most of his films is a source of knowledge and purity (Sheibani, 2006)

Kiarostami always focuses on the power of the present. In his view, the viewer of his cinema should be detached from the bitterness of the past and the anxieties of the future in order to enjoy the wonderful moments of the present. His camera provides a fresh look like fresh water flowing in each and every moment of the river. As mentioned earlier, this concept of fresh look is borrowed from the poetry of Sepehri and it gives audience revealing fresh eyes to understand the reality they couldn’t see before (Sheibani, 2006).

Kiarostami takes a minimalist approach by utilising amateur actors, especially children. His tendency to look at the world through a child’s eye reveals his aesthetics of simplicity. He understands that a child’s perspectives of this world are entirely different from that of grownups, for a child is free from grownup’s concerns. For example, in the film The Wind Will Carry Us it is through the eyes of a young rural boy, the engineer (the lead character) learns to grasp both life and death. It is through the child’s perspectives; he realizes that the life is not to wait for death but to enjoy because as the poet Farrokhzad perceives, “the wind will carry us away” at any moment of time. In another movie, Where is the Friend’s House? It is through the eyes of Ahmad (the hero) Kiarostami shows the hypocrisy of the grownups (Sheibani, 2006).

Ironical gaze at subjects is another feature of his cinema. He once explained that he prefers the gaze of a spectator in front of a photograph to the kind of gaze that viewers of his films have in a theatre (Balaghi & Shadid, 2001). This ironic gaze at subjects is very well used in the movie, The Wind Will Carry Us. In another movie, Homework through his ironical gaze at child’s suffering, the boy moves beyond everyday pains to attain the beauty bestowed in human’s spirit (Jahanbegloo, 1996).

The presence of isolated characters illuminates the poetic beauty of Kiarostami’s films. They act according to their inner voices. They are displaced on the roads and wandering from one end to another end. They all pronounce that the very life is transitory. This idea is beautifully portrayed in; The Wind Will Carry Us (Sheibani, 2006).

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Simple issues, poor people and human feelings...

Kiarostami’s films prefer simple issues to complex, current political issues. He tries to depict the simple concerns of individuals who live and survive in a harsh and complicated environment. This nature of neglecting immediate political issues and concerns made him an outstanding filmmaker inside and outside of Iran. When his country was experiencing a dark-violent era with more killings and executions than at any time in the history, he focussed his camera on simple issues and themes such as the burdens of homework shouldered on Iranian children (Homework), the determination of a young rural boy to find his friend’s house to return his notebook (Where Is the Friend’s House?). This approach of neglecting serious issues and carrying trivial issues has grabbed much criticism from critical insiders of Iranian cinema (Sheibani, 2006).

Unlike many of his counterparts, he didn’t use his movies as mere political slogans. Instead, he translated real human feelings in to the language of images and imageries. The themes of most of his movies revolve around poor people. Through the eyes of a middle class director, he probed in to the problems of the poor (Sheibani, 2006). In Close-Up, he tells the story of an unemployed film buff, Hossain Sabzian, who is impersonating as the famous Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, so as to mislead a respectable middle-class family. In Where Is My Friend’s House? His camera follows a poor young boy walking many miles to return a friend’s note book before their teacher finds out it has carelessly been misplaced.

Style and stylistics

As mentioned earlier, no written script, no professional actors, and minimal dialogues are the trademarks of Kiarostami’s film making. He plots an innocent world where his simple characters live before camera (Zaatari, 1994). He films them as much as possible within their natural environment and never compels them to act. For example, Hossein, (the main character of the movie, Through the Olive Trees) woks as a gofer in the movie. As he worked in construction field he simply worked in front of the camera (Aufderheide, 1995). To make non-actors feel at ease, he chooses digital camera without the lights and avoids the large crowd around them usually seen in the shooting sets.

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Long takes and long shots are the signatures of Kiarostami’s film making. He disclosed it in an interview: “I don’t like people to be far away, like in a long shot. I think that when people are in a close-up, it’s different from when you see them in a long shot, and you can understand them better” (Rosen, 1992, pp. 38). In the movie, Through the Olive Trees, he uses depth of field and long takes frequently and he shows the whole scene in one take, in its physical entirety (Sheibani, 2006).

Extensive use of nature and landscapes is another highlight of Kiarostami’s films. His camera is sensitive to colours and makes use of the maximum of lights/lack of lights. Olive forests, rice paddies and other natural greeneries are the favourite locations of his many movies. Rural areas in the northern Iran are very well utilised for this purpose. He believes that these green olive forests and paddies suggest inviolability of life in its simplest forms. His Rostam Abad trilogy, the popular series of his three films, have utilised the nature brilliantly (Sheibani, 2006).

Looking world in a different viewpoint is another speciality of Kiarostami. Shooting films through windows and windshields are seen in many of his films such as Close-Up, Certified Copy, Life and Then Nothing, and Taste of Cherry. He suggests that this would give opportunities to viewers to perceive the world in a different angle. The image of window stems from his influence of Persian poetry. The window is the symbol of hope, light and spiritual insight (Sheibani, 2006).

Lack of precise shooting script is the other feature to be highlighted in the process of Kiarostami’s filmmaking. Instead, he draws a general outline, he makes no notes until he finds actors befitted to his characters. He writes only notes, no dialogs in full (www.imdb.com). He explains it in an occasion: “I don’t have a precise script that an editor can use for the shooting script. I shoot quickly, and I don’t have a lot of time to prepare what I want to do. I’m the one who knows exactly what I have to do with the materials I have” (Rosen, 1992, pp. 39). Aufderheide (1995) compares his techniques of filmmaking with collage making. He explains that Kiarostami, like a collage maker, collects pieces and put them together. He doesn’t invent material. He just watches and takes it from the daily life of people around him.

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Conclusion

Kiarostami’s poetic approach of film making has got mixed reception in Iran. Many critics have criticised that his films are apolitical and lack drama. He is also slated for being detached from contemporary issues. Many of the critics go a step further saying that his journalistic method of filmmaking doesn’t deserve such attention. They allege that, as he portrays Iran as a poverty-stricken region he gets much accolades from international film festivals. Some local critics have pointed out that due to the over praise of Kiarostami, other Iranian directors are badly neglected (Sheibani, 2006; Giovacchini, 2006).

Kiarostami neglects these criticisms that he is apolitical and he has apathy towards contemporary issues and concerns. He states that if today’s human problems are political in nature, and then for sure, he is very political in his treatment (Aufderheide, 1995). Jean-Luc Godard has said, “Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami.” (www.imdb.com). And Japanese legend Akira Kurosawa gave him a world-class wink: “When Satyajit Ray died I was quite depressed, but after watching Kiarostami’s films, I thought God had found the right person to take his place” (Aufderheide, 1995; Balaghi & Shadid, 2001).

References:

Aufderheide, Pat. (1995). Real life is more important than cinema. Cineaste, 21/3, 31-33.

Balaghi, Shiva & Shadid, Anthony. (2001). Nature has no culture: The photographs of Abbas Kiarostami. Middle East Report,219, 30-33.

Cutler, Aaron. (2011). Certifying the Copy: An interview with Abbas Kiarostami. Cineaste, 36/2. 12-15.

Giovacchini, David. (2006). The cinema of Abbas Kiarostami by Alberto Elena and Belinda Coombes. Mela Notes79, 28-30.

Jahanbegloo, Ramin (1996) In Zaven Qukasian, Abbas Kiarostami: A collection of critiques and essays. Tehran, 1996, pp. 21.

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Kupsc, Jarek. (2010). The history of cinema for beginners. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

Rosen, Miriam. (1992). The camera of art: An interview with Kiarostami. Cineaste 19-2/3, 38-40.

Sheibani, Khatereh. (2006). Kiarostami and the aesthetics of modern Persian poetry.Iranian Studies39/4, 509-537.

Vatulescu, Cristina (2011). The face to face encounter of art and law: Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up. Law and Literature, 23/2. 173-194.

Zaatari, Akram (1995). Abbas Kiarostami. BOMB 50, 12-14.

Web resources www.imdb.com

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