Shirin

Reviewed by J. Lunden on August 22, 2010

Director Abbas Kiarostami, by his very nature as a filmmaker, makes my job difficult. To review his work is, in a way, to betray his work. The illusions in Kiarostami’s more experimental/conceptual films depend upon an audience unaware of his slight-of-hand. As a critic, I must carefully attempt to explain—without ruining the illusion—that the beautiful assistant wasn’t actually sawed in half, but that it was simply another woman contorted in the second section of a pre-cut box. That kind of delicacy is nearly impossible with a film like Kiarostami’s Shirin. So, if you’re familiar with (and are a fan of) Kiarostami’s work, skip my review and enjoy unhindered. Everyone else, follow me.

As the film begins, we are presented with a sequence of beautiful title cards for a film called Khosrow and Shirin, which is based on a medieval Iranian poem. The title cards are all we’ll ever see of that film. Instead, we hear the film’s narrative as it unfolds on screen, but we watch it through the faces of an audience in an Iranian cinema. That’s it. That’s the film. We watch faces (mostly women) for an hour and a half.

Some of you will undoubtedly find Shirin to be a miserable waste of 95 minutes. But, before you turn away from what sounds like a pretension modern art installation, let me share a few thoughts I had during the film. I’ve spent a lifetime watching films in the dark. Watching Shirin, I was reminded of the fascination I had with sneaking glances at my fellow audience members. I would quietly spin around in my seat and watch the faces and how the light danced across their unique expressions. Some people looked indifferent no matter what was happening on screen, others seemed to be running with the picture, as if every action affected them physically. I thought about Luc Besson’s Leon (one of my favorite films) and the scene in which Jean Reno’s character joyfully watches Gene Kelly in It’s Always Fair Weather. He turns around in an almost empty cinema to see if anyone else is enjoying it as much as he is. (It gets me every time.) Studying the faces of these women, I began thinking about cinema itself and that what I was seeing here was something wholly unique to the medium. To me, the human face is the most fascinating and communicative palette, and cinema is the only medium that can accurately capture its astonishing rhythms. So, as one part of my attention was spent constructing the unseen film on screen through the soundtrack and the faces in the audience, another part was on a journey of reflection. It seemed Kiarostami’s strange visual experiment was a mirror.

But, wait, this is Abbas Kiarostami we’re talking about, a master of paradoxical cinema. Surely his aim wasn’t just to remind us of the power of motion pictures. Yes, there is more to Shirin than meets the eye. My first clue was the audience itself. About twenty minutes into the film, I was taken with how beautiful many of the women were. I began to wonder if Kiarostami had invited a modeling agency to the cinema or if he just happened to shoot on a really good day. Of course, I figured he’d filmed in segments, perhaps during different showings, but, still, this amount of beauty was uncanny. It wasn’t until Juliette Binoche appeared in the audience that I got it. These were Iranian film stars. From then on, my thoughts changed; the mirror had now become warped and abstract. (I’ve since learned that the actors were filmed in Kiarostami’s living room, with Kiarostami directing or eliciting every emotion as the actors stared at a crude sketch.) But why would Kiarostami choose to direct actors instead of capturing expressions from a genuine audience in a real cinema? Was he commenting on the nature and manipulations of narrative cinema? After all, cinema is just a collection of faces, dialogue and sounds; Shirin just positions them in an atypical fashion. And why focus only on women’s faces? An hour and a half is not enough time to consider gender differences (within or outside of cinema), especially from an Iranian movie theatre. Perhaps Kiarostami is saying something about female empathy, or just marveling at their beauty—or both. And what are we to think about the people sitting behind the women whose faces are often occupied by ominous gazes?

All of the above reflections are why I’ve fallen in love with Abbas Kiarostami’s cinema. I recently said that I had never seen anything quite like his film Close-Up. At the risk of sounding redundant, I have to again express that sentiment for Shirin. It is a film where nothing and everything exists on screen. Godard once said, “The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.” But, of course, cinema must lie in order to tell the truth. As I left Shirin, I marveled at the hutzpah of Kiarostami’s clever ruse and am still wondering about its specific truths. I won’t tell you that I deciphered the full spectrum of the filmmaker’s intentions, but I greatly enjoyed the pursuit.

Shirin comes to DVD in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is anamorphically enhanced. The DVD is dual-layered, progressive and has an average video bitrate of 5.42Mbps.

Given that Shirin is comprised of mostly the same shot over and over, the transfer doesn’t have to work very hard. That said, Cinema Guild’s transfer is very good. Black levels are excellent. I noticed very little artifacting, which is impressive given that 99.9% of the film is set in darkness. The skin tones of the illuminated faces and the colors of their various styles of hijabs are accurate and well detailed. My only real complaint is that the picture is oddly windowboxed.

Shirin is presented here with a Farsi Dolby Digital 2.0 track at 448Kbps. English subtitles are presented in glorious white.

The soundtrack presents its minimal elements perfectly. All we really hear is the sound coming from the fake movie and the ambiance of the cinema itself (murmuring, eating, shuffling, etc.). Even without the aid of surround sound, the mix is very convincing.

Taste of Shirin (27min):
This is an excellent documentary about the making of the film. We’re invited into Kiarostami’s livingroom to watch him film and direct his fictional audience. You couldn’t ask for a better extra.

Roads of Kiarostami (32min):
A short film by Kiarostami presented in non-anamorphic widescreen.

Rug (6min):
Another short film presented in non-anamorphic widescreen.

Booklet:
Included is a booklet containing an excellent essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

[Click images for full resolution captures]