FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
TEN
Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's quietly compelling 2002 film counts down 10 separate
conversations in one car - driven by an attractively stylish young mother and divorcée - as it
meanders through the busy streets of Tehran. The first conversation (and the only one not
between two women) is with her son, whose feelings about her remarrying have made him
antagonistic. The camera never leaves the boy, capturing his every thought and reaction, every
joke and line of attack, as he argues with his mother and the bustling city passes by behind him.
Later on, the driver picks up a prostitute and the situation is reversed, with only the driver's
reactions visible as the prostitute proudly defends her life to the inquisitive woman at the wheel:
"I don't need anyone. It's you women who are all unhappy." In these and eight other
conversations, the film invites us to sympathize with both driver and passenger in different ways.
If the "candid" conceit occasionally becomes self-conscious (the absentminded fidgeting of a
passenger who thinks she's alone feels contrived), the performances by the amateur cast are
excellent. Ten's deceptively simple premise and Kiarostami's ingeniously minimal
approach offer a sophisticated portrait of the problem of female independence in Iran today, one
that should prove anything but alien to women in any modern society. As if it contained merely
one of millions of similar stories, the car's incessant motion through the enveloping traffic mimics a ceaseless quest for happiness, while the frank talk within this private bubble
becomes the literal vehicle of its exploration.
DVD Extras: Ten advances Kiarostami's recent flirtation with digital video
cameras, first used in the final sequence of A Taste of Cherry (more or less per force,
after an accident at the processing lab destroyed the filmed footage); and more recently, almost as
an afterthought, while scouting locations for his ABC Africa. Enchanted with the unique
potential of these small, relatively unobtrusive cameras, Kiarostami
deliberately combines them with the unique social setting of the car (a longstanding favorite
locale) to achieve Ten's intimacy and frankness. These and other matters come up in an informative and interesting
(especially to film buffs) discussion in the loquacious 83-minute cinema lesson 10 on
Ten, as the self-taught auteur discusses his approach to film in general and Ten in
particular - all from behind the wheel, of course. Robert Avila, who has written extensively on Iranian Cinema for The San Francisco Bay Guardian
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