Fantastic!

Boring

Absolutely Fantastic

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

The plot is quite simple.. Hussein Sabzian a cinephile, impersonates his favorite director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and enters the house of a well-to-do family convincing them that they would star in his next movie. After few meetings the family suspect that he is an impostor and inform the police. The film's opening scene starts here where a journalist is escorting two policemen to arrest Sabzian. Then the trial of Sabzian begins.The film is based on a true story and this is rather the case in many movies. But what makes this movie so special is that its director Kiarostami intervened in the actual trial of Sabzian! When Kiarostami heard about Sabzian's case he put his next project on hold and started preparing for a documentary on Sabzian.. he visited him in jail and helped move his trial up and acquired from the ministry of justice the permission to shoot it. He (Kiarostami) had the permission also to ask questions through out the trial, demanding Sabzian more than once to talk about certain aspects he found essential. The footage of the actual trial was included as it is in this film.Kiarostami brilliantly then convinced the individuals involved in the story to star in his film that is depicting their case. He made them re-enact some of the past incidents of this story and then arranged a meeting between Sabzian and Makhmalbaf; the director that Sabzian impersonated. Kiarostami shot their meeting from a distance using a sound record machine, following them with his crew while they were riding on Makhmalbaf's motorcycle to the house of the family Sabzian previously conned. Again the shots were included in the movie. The film that is brilliantly executed by Kiarostami can be divided into three parts; re-enacted scenes from the past, the actual trial, and the real meeting between Sabzian and the director Makhmalbaf.The judge tried to convince Kiarostami to find a more interesting story to write about but the famous director found something else in the story of Sabzian and he was right. Kiarostami was able to communicate with us the suffering of a human being.. his quest to find his true identity... his attempt to achieve a dream, to be appreciated or at least recognized as a distinct individual with distinguished characteristics. The story also goes beyond that to talk about poverty and its destructive impact on the individual and on the society. It also sheds the light upon many interesting cultural and social values in Iran. Kiarostami was able to introduce a masterpiece that holds great meanings, memorable scenes, and artistic execution. Even the score was beautiful.. every single aspect.The film got Kiarostami a worldwide recognition and many considered it one of the best movies ever to be made. New York Times film critic Stephen Holden described the film as "brilliant", whereas Los Angeles Times critic Dennis Lim considered it as eloquent and that it represents the psyche of a complicated man alongside the cultural and social realities of Iran. It ranked #43 in the British Film Institute's critics' poll of the 50 best films ever made, and among "The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time" list in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.

Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990) More people should see Kiarostami's work. This is a fascinating example of it, the second of his I've seen but I have more on my Netflix queue. Close-Up is considerably more complex than it at first appears. Kiarostami makes a point of emphasizing the mundane. Those early scenes of small talk and casual conversation help to create a certain atmosphere that makes it all seem so real. Even later sequences which are re-enactments of earlier events do not appear to be artificial at all: I had to keep reminding myself that Kiarostami did not film the original meetings of Hossain Sabzian and the various family members. The irony of this is that Sabzian, while pretending to be the famed director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, claimed that he was going to put the Ahankahs in a movie... and as a result of this case, they did in fact wind up in a movie!The film shows a great deal of compassion toward Sabzian, and to everyone else involved for that matter. It is incredible to think that after the trial was over, they all agreed to participate in the re-enactments of earlier events. I don't like to give a film a 10/10 until I've seen it at least a second time, so I won't here... but on a rewatch it could well reach that highest rating. 9/10

I've just finished "Nema-ye Nazdik" (Close-up) and i LOVED it. It's about the trial of a man who impersonate the identity of Mohsen Makhmalbaf to a family. Hossain Sabzian is the protagonist and he played the role in a very good way. He tell honestly what he did and assumes as he has done something bad, which is different than clichés as we can see on others movies like "I'm innocent, i didn't do anything".It's also a movie about cinema, the names of Makhmalbaf movies are mentioned many times like "Bicycleran" (The Cyclist) and "Arousi-ye Khouban" (Marriage of the Blessed). The movie title is also a reference to the cinema because a "close-up" it's a type of shot, the director who wants to make a film about the trial of Hossain Sabzian shoot him in close-up.

One close look at the history of cinema will tell that some of the great films have been made using everyday events as background.This is done in order to include a certain dose of creativity in scenario.This is also the case of Iranian film Nemaye Nazdik (Close Up) based on a famous incident of impersonation involving great Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.If we believe that cinema is like magic and its actors and actress are like stars,we must also be ready to face the negative consequences of the so called star status of cinema's luminaries.There are many admirers who do not understand the detrimental consequences of their actions when they try to imitate what is fiction.Close Up talks of one such case involving a poor Iranian man named Ali Sabzian who deceives a lady by stating that he would like to shoot in her house as he is famous Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf.His deceit is exposed and he is imprisoned.All this might appear as a simple tale to layman but in reality "Close Up" is more complex than one can think.It is a film which challenges our notions of cinema and reality,truth or falsehood.As these concepts are subjective in nature,it is better if viewers are left to draw their own conclusions after having seen the film.One of the greatest scenes from "Close Up" shows Ali Sabzian (as he is sobbing uncontrollably) being comforted by great Mohsen Makhmalbaf.This is the most perfect example of how reality meets reality.