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Close-up

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Internationally revered Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has created some of the most inventive and transcendent cinema of the past thirty years, and Close-up is his most radical, brilliant work. This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves. With its universal themes and fascinating narrative knots, Close-up continues to resonate with viewers around the world.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DVD SET FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum, authors of Abbas Kiarostami
- The Traveler, a notable early feature by director Abbas Kiarostami
- “Close-up” Long Shot, a forty-five-minute documentary on Close-up’s central figure, Hossein Sabzian, five years after Kiarostami’s film
- New video interview with Kiarostami
- A Walk with Kiarostami (2003), a thirty-two-minute documentary portrait of the director by Iranian film professor Jamsheed Akrami
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Godfrey Cheshire

Also available on Blu-ray.

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So, I wonder if I have to triple-dip? The UK DVD was a considerable improvement over the US one. How much room for additional improvement can there be?

(Getting The Traveler as a bonus points to a "yes" answer).

Still hoping for a nice BRD of Wind will Carry Us.

Very tempting to go for this over the Region 2 - if only for the inclusion of The Traveler which is a marvellous film in its own right.

It's a shame that Moretti's "Opening Night of Close-Up" isn't included - but frankly I'd much rather have The Traveler.

That stack of extra's is a definate triple-dip for me! I'm just hoping the "more" announcement with Red Desert isn't too enticing as it may lead to a double triple-dip in June.

N.B. Matt, I assume it's been added to the Criterion site after you made your post, but:

A Walk with Kiarostami (2003), a thirty-two-minute documentary portrait of the director by Iranian film professor Jamsheed Akram

is also listed in the disc features now.

You don't need to think of this as a triple-dip: Traveller is a major Kiarostami feature and one of the great films of the seventies. I'd say it's hands down the best 'extra' Criterion have ever included on a disc. (Considering that if it had been released on its own bare-bones it would still be a contender for release of the year for me.)

> You don't need to think of this as a triple-dip: Traveller is a major Kiarostami feature and one
> of the great films of the seventies.

So I just need to think of this as Criterion's release of Traveler -- which happens to have a new and improved copy of Close Up as an extra?

A Walk With Kiarostami filmed when AK visited Galway, Ireland in 2001, I had just facilitated a 4 hour masterclass with AK with Dr. Jamsheed Akrami's help, and they filmed this piece right after... I caught the finished article @ V&A during the 2005 London Kiarostami festival, and it's good... My notes from then...

In his TREES IN SNOW photographic series, humans are absent, and his dialogue with nature appears direct and unmediated. Yet the gaze sees in new ways. A documentary by Dr. Jamsheed Akrami, A WALK WITH KIAROSTAMI, taking photographs by The Weir in Kilcolgan (Galway), reveals something of this third eye as we see a copse reflected in water turned to intriguing shimmering shapes.

Michael Kerpan wrote:So I just need to think of this as Criterion's release of Traveler -- which happens to have a new and improved copy of Close Up as an extra?

Sold!

I'm ashamed to say I've never seen this, but should I be angry that it isn't being released on Blu-ray? It seems to be a major release and is a pretty recent film. Was it shot on DV?

brendanjc wrote:I'm ashamed to say I've never seen this, but should I be angry that it isn't being released on Blu-ray? It seems to be a major release and is a pretty recent film. Was it shot on DV?

I'm pretty sure that DV didn't exist in 1990...

It is a very nice movie though, you should jump on it...

Hah, yes, I just meant "video". It's definitely a release I've been looking forward to either way.

Great film, this was almost certainly shot on 16mm in a documentary style. In my mind, it's almost worse when these smaller film format movies get overlooked for Blu, because while Blu still isn't quite capable of replicating 70mm vistas, it can nearly perfectly replicate the experience of a 16mm blow-up.

I wouldn't say this is screaming for a blu-ray, as certain parts of it are a bit low-tech (including a scene that, it could be said, calls attention to this). The Soda disc I have looks pretty good, and I wasn't distracted by the resolution. It's just awesome that this is going to be coming to a wider audience. It's easily near the top of my favorite films in the collection now.

I was surprised to see this today, actually, since the Janus print will still be touring North America throughout the summer.

EDIT to add:

Zot! wrote:Great film, this was almost certainly shot on 16mm in a documentary style. In my mind, it's almost worse when these smaller film format movies get overlooked for Blu, because while Blu still isn't quite capable of replicating 70mm vistas, it can nearly perfectly replicate the experience of a 16mm blow-up.

I think the fact that it's shot in 16mm makes it less essential for a blu-ray, since you are missing less information from the print with a DVD than you would be with a 70mm. Most of my DVDs of 16mm films are the best-looking DVDs I own because of this, and are unlikely upgrades in the future for me.

I agree with what you're saying, and I'm sure that is exactly what Criterion is thinking, I don't remember Close-Up being a visual tour-de-force either. However, my demented mind enjoys that Blu is a very close approximation of viewing a 16mm film projected.

I too would like to see this on Blu-ray--precisely because as others have mentioned, Blu-ray can very closely approximate the full resolution of a 16mm print. But either way, it looks like a wonderful release!

Zot! wrote:Great film, this was almost certainly shot on 16mm in a documentary style. In my mind, it's almost worse when these smaller film format movies get overlooked for Blu, because while Blu still isn't quite capable of replicating 70mm vistas, it can nearly perfectly replicate the experience of a 16mm blow-up.

I think there is a mixture of formats, 16mm for the courtroom footage, 35mm for most of the rest...

Girlish squeal. I think I can assume The Traveler is as tops as his other films? Either way this lopped onto to everything else, I think, confirms this as a positive landmark year for the company.

ellipsis7 wrote:

Zot! wrote:Great film, this was almost certainly shot on 16mm in a documentary style. In my mind, it's almost worse when these smaller film format movies get overlooked for Blu, because while Blu still isn't quite capable of replicating 70mm vistas, it can nearly perfectly replicate the experience of a 16mm blow-up.

I think there is a mixture of formats, 16mm for the courtroom footage, 35mm for most of the rest...

You are correct, there are different formats.

I was hoping for a Blu release when they announced the "clue" in January because I picked up the Spanish filmoteca fnac version last year when I was in Barcelona and the transfer is outstanding. WAY better than the crap Facets release.

The problem for me is not the triple-dip, it's the quadruple-dip that would inevitably occur when Close-up is released on blu-ray that's the problem. As a result I think I'll skip* this and hope that within 2-3 years a blu-ray version is the triple-dip.

And 16mm grain looks great on blu.

*Ok, or wait until this heavily discounted.

John Edmond wrote:The problem for me is not the triple-dip, it's the quadruple-dip that would inevitably occur when Close-up is released on blu-ray that's the problem.

I think the problem with your reasoning is the proximity of the three elements "Close Up", "blu-ray" and "inevitable". Since the title is already spoken for in the two main English-language territories (and, if I'm not mistaken, in France and Spain), and the only label involved likely to issue it on BluRay, Criterion, is not doing so, who do you suppose is the white knight that's going to come to its HD rescue out of the blue?

Despite not being Blu, release of the year.

Now where's the trilogy, an Eclipse documentaries box, and the other early features. Oh, and Taste of Cherry remastered and in Blu.

Oh I think Close-up will inevitably see a blu-ray release (though maybe not by Criterion, and probably not for a fair while); it's one of the key films by a current, prominent filmmaker. It's not like it just scrapped into existence as a SD-DVD and I should be thankful for what I get - as you note multiple companies have already thought it worth releasing. As a result I already have a superb SD version and can wait a bit to see what happens; my white knight is not a particular company - instead it's time, patience, and budgetary concerns.

Of course I say all this but I'm pretty sure The Traveler will make me crack.

Now bumped to Blu, along with Everlasting Moments.

What A Disgrace wrote:Now bumped to Blu, along with Everlasting Moments.

Good Lord, most expensive month EVER.

So glad this is going Blu.