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those picks for iranian gateway films are crazy imo the one you want is jafar panahi's Offside - quite fast, gently funny, extremely accessible. & it's a suberb film
What's the thing that has stopped you from watching it all the way through?
Sometimes fast movies are more boring than slow ones.
― Zero Dark 33⅓: The Final Insult (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 15:22 (eleven years ago) link
Oddly of the ilxors whose tastes I’ve been able to get a bead on, Lex is my polar opposite while Eric is probably most similar to me.
― circa1916, Wednesday, 20 February 2013 15:59 (eleven years ago) link
I thought 'gateway' -- if we're talking about the recent output of AN ENTIRE NATION -- required it actually be 'great' as well as relatively accessible. Offside is a good film but some '90s Kiarostami might do just as well; I really don't think most of em are impenetrable or difficult w/o context of other films (excepting maybe taste of Cheery).
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 16:18 (eleven years ago) link
itt Matt P coughs up his regularly scheduled hairball
― I Don't Wanna Be Dissed (By Anyone But You) (WilliamC), Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5:34 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
just for you sweetums
― administrator galina (Matt P), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 22:48 (eleven years ago) link
fwiw i was taking the piss. i have a deep and undying love for this list, dr morbius, clemenza, and especially pauline kael. eric h can eat it though.
― administrator galina (Matt P), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
^lol
Offside has a bunch of characteristics that appeal about (and was marketed to us thru festivals as) "iranian cinema"―unforgettable non-actors, mixing documentary & fiction in startling ways, political issues & that great advantage of all "world cinema": simply a window on an unfamiliar world.
so seeing it should stand one in good stead i think for, say, this is not a film, the apple (sib), thru close-up etc., back to a moment of innocence. and in truth i think it stands in this company, tho i can show it to non-cineastes when putting on the wind will carry us would be gauche.
(i agree films like moment of innocence, the apple & even close-up are not especially difficult watches, but as much as i may imagine through the olive trees or TWWCU has a trancending universality, slow 90s kiarostami is sort of what i think someone who can't get into iranian film knee-jerks against.)(i also think this cinema is particularly helped by an actual cinema.)
but on a different tack, here's nanni moretti's slow wry 7 minute short The Opening Day of Close-Up, maybe as good a gateway as any, in which close-up looks intriguingly beautiful
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDI4MzI3OTEy.html
the apple is as rewarding as any film i can think of but is def a difficult watch imo, just wrt the first 20 minutes. i can imagine people turning off. what's satisfying is how the air in the room changes as this progresses, though, as the humour surfaces, as it becomes almost playful. really feeling your exemplary post btw so only being picky here.
― schlump, Thursday, 21 February 2013 00:34 (eleven years ago) link