TEN

Abbas Kiarostami, 2002

“Give the audience no more than a hint of a scene; otherwise, they won’t contribute anything, but get them working with you, and it becomes a social act.” - Orson Welles

“The extent to which a viewer is willing to do their share of the work is crucial, for without their own input, they cannot fully enjoy it.” - Theo Angelopoulos

The cinema of Abbas Kiarostami is deceptively simple. His films seem straightforward at first, but it can take a few viewings before their inferences become apparent, even for those familiar with his work. Poetic, contemplative, philosophical, questioning, and formally inventive (sometimes radically), his films are the antithesis of those that trade in sensation and catharsis, the kind of films that virtually take the viewer hostage (as Kiarostami puts it) to usher them from one pre-digested event to the next.

Kiarostami’s films are often self-referential, with rhymes and repetitions occurring not only within a single film but between all of them. Their elliptical quality allows viewers to make connections, find meanings, and reflect on the implications of each work – including the act of watching them! Kiarostami’s films challenge expectations, the role of the spectator and their complicity in perpetuating questionable, if not negatively impacting, movies. He encourages active, creative participation rather than passive observation, fostering a quality of interaction that is largely taken for granted in other artistic disciplines.

All of these attributes are to the fore in TEN, a film that exemplifies Kiarostami’s artistic personality, methods and intentions.

Ten is composed of ten sections numbered in reverse order, 10 to 1, each marked with a single strike of a tiny bell – a sound that most obviously (and amusingly) denotes rounds in a boxing match but also, perhaps, a prayer bell – a call to reflection, maybe?

The film is set entirely inside the car of the main character, Mania. As the driver of the car and initiator of conversations, Mania is a kind of stand-in for Kiarostami, mirroring his directorial position and functioning as a virtual co-director. The ten scenes comprise ten conversations with a handful of people: Mania’s ten-year-old son, Amin (sections 10, 5, 3, and 1 – interestingly, Amin’s age could also be implicit in the title); her sister (9); an elderly woman (8); a prostitute (7); a woman she meets at a shrine (6, 2); and a friend (4).

In the first scene, Mania talks to Amin about her divorce from his father and intended marriage to another man. Amin is not happy about it. For this entire long single take, the camera is fixed solely on the boy. We don’t see Mania; we only hear her. Amin becomes increasingly irritated by their conversation, a makes misogynistic comments that likely reflect his father’s views. These ongoing conversations between mother and son constitute the form and content of ‘Ten’, while other conversations examine sexual politics in a culture based on male privilege.

The viewpoint is confined to two fixed positions, both coming from digital cameras mounted on the car dashboard of the car: one focused on Mania, the other on the passenger. Apart from one crucial cut-away, the film doesn’t deviate from these perspectives. As minimalism goes, few filmmakers are this reductive, although one may recall Andy Warhol’s Beauty No.2 (1964) and My Hustler (1965), two excellent films with a similarly observational aesthetic that also position the spectator as a primary protagonist.

Kiarostami’s films are almost exclusively set out-of-doors, particularly since his 1991 breakthrough, And Life Goes On. He rarely takes his camera into buildings. Vehicle interiors are as close as he comes to entering personal spaces. This is one of the ways that Kiarostami encourages the viewer to consider filmmaking and film viewing ethics, particularly the assumption of unrestricted access.

The fixed viewpoints in Ten emphasise off-screen space. In the first scene, where we only see Amin, our ability to evaluate Mania, particularly on her appearance, is denied. Instead, our attention is focused on Amin and, by implication, who he may become as an adult. This use of off-screen space also speaks to the innate ‘selectivity’ of filmmaking, where what isn’t seen is as important as what is, and to that end, the use of sound is crucial. Kiarostami will frequently focus on one person while another speaks out of frame, someone we may never see. When Mania talks to the prostitute, for example, we never see her. This brings heightened focus to the prostitute’s words and Mania’s reaction to them.

When the prostitute leaves the car, Kiarostami cuts to a shot of her in the street. It’s the closest we come to see what she looks like but at an intentional distance. By keeping her at a distance, Kiarostami limits the potential of prejudice by denying our capacity to judge her, emphasising the character’s right to privacy (or that of the person ‘playing’ her; after all, we don’t know for certain that she’s an actor), and setting our focus on what she has to say.

The use of digital cameras (equipment that offers the means to ‘look’ where one perhaps shouldn't) gives a ‘surveillance’ feel to the film, allowing Kiarostami to consider voyeurism without giving into it. Given the political boldness of ‘Ten’, it’s interesting that the film has a ‘covert’ look and feel about it: a film made on the move, guerrilla-style, with tiny cameras, non-professional actors, and a director who isn’t even present during the shoot! We can’t even be sure if these people (some or all of them) are actually acting. My initial impression was that only Mania knew about the cameras (with the possible exception of the woman in scenes 6 and 2), but I’ve since learned that the old woman was the only participant who didn’t know the cameras were there and Amin (Mania’s real son) thought they were doing tests (hence his candidness).

Kiarostami’s tendency to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction is very much to the fore in ‘Ten’. It’s as much a philosophical choice as an artistic one, side-stepping conventional narrative tropes and (as much as possible) voyeurism. For him, scenes that cause viewers to avert their eyes (or stoically endure them) are unnecessary. By their very modesty, his films challenge the so-called transgressive and confrontational excesses of contemporary cinema and the vicarious intimacies found within the relative anonymity of a darkened theatre. For example, what was the benefit (to the film, actors, or viewer) of showing Kerry Fox fellate Mark Rylance in Patrice Chéreau’s Intimacy (1999)? One could say that provoking the question is justification enough, but Kiarostami’s films lead one to wonder (at the risk of seeming prudish) whether such questions need provoking.

While ‘Ten’ was a partial summation of Kiarostami’s work to that point, it was also a bold and urgent step forward on aesthetic and political levels. In light of the dominance of Hollywood, the need for films that (as Michael Haneke succinctly put it) “ask insistent questions instead of providing false answers, offer clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, and advocate provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus” is not only central to Kiarostami’s practice but the fundamental driver in ‘Ten’.

Kiarostami’s films stand in opposition to films as cash-generating entertainment. In the quote above, Angelopoulos was referring to his own densely elliptical films, but both quotes apply strongly to the work of Abbas Kiarostami. His films are for those “willing to do their share of the work”, but with Kiarostami as boss, the job is an endless pleasure.