Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami

In his work on deconstruction, Jacques Derrida describes how we ought to examine our attachment to any specific idea or object by "deconstructing" it (purposefully vague, alas) and comprehending it's opposite. It is premised on the principle that literary, scholarly, or artistic works can be best defined by what they exclude, rather than what they include. Through deconstructing dualisms, such as the Cartesian "mind/body" or the Hegelian "self/other," we engage in a critical labor of working to implode each binary by thinking about what such a relation already leaves out.

I believe that Close-Up is a uniquely Derridiean film. We often forget that cinema is also an institution with structural barriers that severely limit the scope of what is produced in the industry, ultimately generating its own dualisms through the imposition of borders, copyrights, and profit accumulation. With this film, Kiarostami suggests that (a la Derrida) we ought to think critically about how those barriers are constructed, who is excluded from engaging in the medium, and the various modalities of subordination, dispossession, and displacement that are produced for those who are relegated to the periphery. Cinema is drawn along elitist lines where those with power ultimately guide the industry by making decisions like what movies get funding, which actors get cast, and the magnitude of ad campaigns. We often forget that what we watch is built upon that architecture, and Kiarostami looks to denude us from that veil of ignorance.

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I'm very glad that i've come across this film. My scholarly/research work looks at untangling how Satyajit Ray's filmography invests in contradictory visions of "progress". Kiarostami fills in the gaps of what Ray failed to do in his works by considering how the film industry itself is elitist.

Not sure whether to rate this higher or not. I think this will be a 5 eventually.