10 on Ten | Review

Charismatic Kiarostami gives his philosophical master class for DV aesthetics.

For some filmmakers the digital revolution has meant more realism, less constraints and restrictions and even less donuts to feed for an entire crew. For some, like director Abbas Kiarostami, Digital Video means less dependence on other technologies, no interference and more opportunities to get to the heart of his subjects.

With 10 on Ten, the Iranian filmmaker responds to some of the many questions that came about after the popular success of Ten,- a film that had two stationary camera views inside a taxi cab with a flux of personalities coming and going in an environment which he has featured in many of his films due to the intimate, sometimes suffocating nature of the space. Not surprisingly, Kiarostami presents film school in his car, with his camcorder perched from the passenger side of his SUV. Broken down into ten sections, the prof, when not concentrating on the road ahead talks directly into the lenses detailing the reasons why he believes in DV and religiously sermons his own principles of filmmaking.

DV has been a godsend for filmmakers from developing countries, and certainly is the greatest alternative for those who make films and can’t afford 35mm (a.k.a New York film students). Kiarostami does deliver a convincing argument about the advantages that he finds in the technology and supports his findings by discussing the logical differences between artificial and the natural aesthetics. While the master’s anecdotes are of an insightful and comical nature, 10 on Ten is pretty much a dull documentary which is better suited as a featurette on the Ten DVD to be strictly used as a library item than an actual theatrical release.

Viewed in original Iranian language with an English dubbing.

The 33rd edition of the Montreal Festival of Nouveau Cinema.

Rating 2.5 stars