Please help me understand the movie "Ten"

January 8, 2007 7:13 AM

What's with the movie Ten?

It essentially follows an Iranian woman driving around town with her son, sister, and random strangers. Is it a documentary, or are some of the scenes scripted? Do the random strangers know they're being taped? While watching it, I was under the impression that this was a personal project of the driver, but even from the IMDB entry it's clear this isn't true (the writer-director isn't the actress). But I'm still not sure. And boy, is it tough to Google that movie title.

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posted by Plutor to society & culture (6 comments total)

All of Kiarostami's cinema tend towards the research of truth, the ideal which concerns the non-professional actor's acting (who can thus escape from "formatting") as much as the detached situations of the artifice. Kiarostami opposes this cinema of authenticity to the cinema of Hollywood, filled with formulas.

Via.

See also.

Found both of these by searching google with the term 'kiarostami 10'.

I remember reading very complementary reviews for this film when it came out, but never got around to watching it. From a film nerd perspective its interesting to read about it being shot on DV instead of (the more traditional choice) of film. I quite want to see 10 on Ten now as well...
posted by slimepuppy at 7:32 AM on January 8, 2007

According to the Salon review, it was "semi-improvised."

The Village Voice expands on that, stating:

Auditioning a number of non-actors, Kiarostami evidently determined what they would talk about in a given scene, and then removed himself when the movie was lensed—at a most generous shooting ratio of 15:1. Thus, one of the few filmmakers since Andy Warhol to rethink the nature of on-screen acting, Kiarostami has called Ten a movie made without a director.

The film is definitely not a documentary (the members of the cast are at least nominally "actors") but a lot of the reviews talk about how the lines are somewhat blurred.

(By the way, I found both articles via the External Reviews for Ten page on the IMDB. Cuts through the Googlechaff pretty quickly.)
posted by bcwinters at 7:33 AM on January 8, 2007

Rotten Tomatoes links lots of quality reviews, as usual. Ebert's is highly critical (it begins, " I am unable to grasp the greatness of Abbas Kiarostami"), but gives this tidbit:

Kiarostami's method, I learn from Geoff Andrew's review in the British magazine Sight & Sound, was to audition real people, choose his actors, talk at length with them about their characters and dialogue, and then send them out in the car without him, to play their characters (or perhaps themselves) as they drove the streets and the camera watched. Beginning with 23 hours of footage, he ended with this 94-minute film.
posted by mediareport at 7:55 AM on January 8, 2007

I love this film. The dvd contains additional information on the production. It is analogous to Mike Leigh's Naked, (another favorite) wherein the script is largely created via improvisation.

While Kiarostami's actors may be nonprofessionals and the script mostly improvised, the film is in no way a documentary. Kiarostami is in the backseat, just outside of the frames of the two digital cameras mounted on either side of the dashboard.
posted by xod at 9:34 AM on January 8, 2007

thats crazy. i just bought the dvd 'ten' with dudley moore. yesterday.
posted by phaedon at 9:59 AM on January 8, 2007

Ebert's is highly critical

Wow. Ebert is a total dick.

I don't know about Kiarostami's other films, but "The Wind Will Carry Us" is hardly "about a man driving around trying to find a place where his cell phone would work." It isn't even an adequate summary of the plot much less what the film is about.
posted by juv3nal at 10:55 AM on January 8, 2007