The Royal Tenenbaums Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)February 26th, 2003
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Most Iranian cinema that has found exhibition here in the US in the last year or two have all focused on the horrible way their society treats women. Awful? Yes. Awfully repetitive? You bet. While Abbas Kiarostami's Ten would certainly be awe-inspiring entertainment regardless of the content, it's also aided by the presence of a strong Iranian woman who turned her own shitty situation around by taking advantage of Iran's bizarre laws.
A successful experiment in Dogme-like cinematic minimalism (the filmmaker swore off everything but digital video a few years ago), Kiarostami's set-up is simple: Mount two stationary cameras to the dashboard of a car - one pointed at each of the front two seats - and capture what happens when Ten's unnamed main character (Mania Akbari) gives rides to various acquaintances in Tehran. The film is called Ten because there are ten segments, each preceded by a bell and one of those countdown images we used to see before movies started. Some of the chapters are long, and some are short. Some show only the passenger, and some are done in one long, uninterrupted shot.
Sadly, the first segment is the best, leaving the rest of Ten slightly less impressive, though never once uninteresting. The opener is comprised of a 15-minute static shot of just the passenger, seven-year-old Amin (Amin Maher), who lays into his mother for conducting herself in a manner inappropriate for an Iranian woman. Apparently, she lied and accused Amin's father of being a drug dealer, which is one of the rare instances in which a woman is allowed to divorce a man in Iran. The two don't hold back, and their argument never once seems scripted.
Amin reappears later in the film (he's the only male passenger), while his mom has encounters with a handful of other women in various emotional states. We see her sister, a hooker, an old lady and a friend who can't find a man, which is almost something out of a stupid American romantic comedy with 10 in the title (see How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days). All the while, the unnamed driver - a very attractive, shockingly confident thirtysomething gal - yells at other drivers and pedestrians as she hurtles through Tehran. And she never once passes a Starbucks.
I would not be at all surprised if somebody told me the cameras were hidden from view and the people in the car had no idea they were being filmed. Ten seems much more real than Taxicab Confessions, or even Jim Jarmusch's wonderful Night on Earth. Some people may get caught up in figuring out how the stories told in each segment relate to the current state of sexual politics in Iran, but that will only distract you from concentrating on what should be two of the year's most jaw-dropping performances (Akbari and Maher). It's yet another spectacular offering from Kiarostami (The Wind Will Carry Us), whose Cannes-winning A Taste of Cherry was largely set in a car, as well.
1:34 - Not Rated
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