Ten conversations, four passengers, two digital cameras using two camera angles, one angry young boy, one agitated mother, and one great film director. That is the essence of the remarkable new film, Ten, by acclaimed Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami. Using only two small video cameras strapped to the dashboard of a car to eavesdrop on a series of semi-improvised conversations, Ten is a highly original film that has an experimental feel to it yet manages to convey a searing emotional honesty.
The opening fifteen-minute exchange between a divorced mother ((Mania Akbari) and her son Amin (Amin Maher) as she drives him to a swimming pool is amazing in its intensity. I don't think I've ever seen any sequence in a film quite like it. Amin urges his mother to allow him to live with his father rather than his stepfather. The camera does not leave the boy who expresses emotions seemingly beyond his age, articulating anger, frustration, and self-pity with sharp intelligence and humor. His mother is deeply unhappy about her relationship with Amin but stubbornly refuses to bend to his desires. The opening sequence reaches such an emotional peak that the remaining conversations become almost anti-climactic.
Other conversations examine the emotional lives and attitudes of the driver and her passengers. These include an old woman who visits the local mausoleum three times a day and tries to persuade Akbari to go to and pray with her. Another depicts Akbari's sister who discusses the mother's relationship with her son and new husband. In one of the best sequences, a laughing prostitute gets into the car thinking the driver is a man and asserts how women cling to men as their only source of strength. She claims that marriage and prostitution are different facets of the same business - the married woman sells sex wholesale the prostitute retail. Indeed, a recurring theme in the film is that, in Iran today, men dominate the society and thwart women's desire for emancipation.
All of these conversations expound diverse opinions about women in Iran and look at issues from a woman's point of view. The camera is trained almost exclusively on one of the participants and does not shift back and forth regardless of whom is talking. The only sound and light emanate from the natural street environment which can be very dark as in the nighttime vignette with the prostitute. In the process of these conversations, some new things about Iranian society are revealed, for example, that a woman can get a divorce by falsely accusing her husband of drug abuse. Kiarostami reminds us of the restrictions on wearing the veil, particularly in a scene where the friend removes her veil to expose her shaven head, something that must have caused the censors to scratch theirs.
As the film moves toward its conclusion, Amin's mother seems to acquire an inner strength that allows her to let events unfold more naturally. She offers advice to two other women who have experienced disappointment in their relationships and acknowledges that winning and losing are but two sides of the same coin. Most importantly, Akbari states many times that `you must love yourself before you can love anyone else'. This leads to another drive with Amin during which the mother is more able to just be with her son without having to discuss plans or expectations. I found Ten, though not always easy to be with, a deeply humanistic work and an extremely rewarding experience.
The opening fifteen-minute exchange between a divorced mother ((Mania Akbari) and her son Amin (Amin Maher) as she drives him to a swimming pool is amazing in its intensity. I don't think I've ever seen any sequence in a film quite like it. Amin urges his mother to allow him to live with his father rather than his stepfather. The camera does not leave the boy who expresses emotions seemingly beyond his age, articulating anger, frustration, and self-pity with sharp intelligence and humor. His mother is deeply unhappy about her relationship with Amin but stubbornly refuses to bend to his desires. The opening sequence reaches such an emotional peak that the remaining conversations become almost anti-climactic.
Other conversations examine the emotional lives and attitudes of the driver and her passengers. These include an old woman who visits the local mausoleum three times a day and tries to persuade Akbari to go to and pray with her. Another depicts Akbari's sister who discusses the mother's relationship with her son and new husband. In one of the best sequences, a laughing prostitute gets into the car thinking the driver is a man and asserts how women cling to men as their only source of strength. She claims that marriage and prostitution are different facets of the same business - the married woman sells sex wholesale the prostitute retail. Indeed, a recurring theme in the film is that, in Iran today, men dominate the society and thwart women's desire for emancipation.
All of these conversations expound diverse opinions about women in Iran and look at issues from a woman's point of view. The camera is trained almost exclusively on one of the participants and does not shift back and forth regardless of whom is talking. The only sound and light emanate from the natural street environment which can be very dark as in the nighttime vignette with the prostitute. In the process of these conversations, some new things about Iranian society are revealed, for example, that a woman can get a divorce by falsely accusing her husband of drug abuse. Kiarostami reminds us of the restrictions on wearing the veil, particularly in a scene where the friend removes her veil to expose her shaven head, something that must have caused the censors to scratch theirs.
As the film moves toward its conclusion, Amin's mother seems to acquire an inner strength that allows her to let events unfold more naturally. She offers advice to two other women who have experienced disappointment in their relationships and acknowledges that winning and losing are but two sides of the same coin. Most importantly, Akbari states many times that `you must love yourself before you can love anyone else'. This leads to another drive with Amin during which the mother is more able to just be with her son without having to discuss plans or expectations. I found Ten, though not always easy to be with, a deeply humanistic work and an extremely rewarding experience.