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Critics Consensus: In his second film outside his native Iran, director Abbas Kiarostami maintains the mysterious, reflective mood of previous triumphs.
Critic Consensus: In his second film outside his native Iran, director Abbas Kiarostami maintains the mysterious, reflective mood of previous triumphs.
All Critics (97) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (80) | Rotten (17) | DVD (1)
Making only his second film outside of his native Iran, Kiarostami undercuts the rigid protocols of polite Japanese society with intimations of violence.
Kiarostami's apparent simplicity masks serious complexity.
Kiarostami is masterful in his layering of space, using glass walls, mirrors, and, in one instance, the aligned side windows of parked cars to suggest a world of divisions, both between people and within them.
Maybe it all serves a purpose, but a movie about empty people doesn't necessarily have to feel empty itself.
A Rorschach test of our own responses to the intimate drama unfolding before us.
The latest small, perplexing masterpiece from the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who in recent years has chosen the path of a world director.
[Director Abbas Kiarostami] knows human folly knows no borders.
A quietly mournful drama, its potentially sordid pieces making a bittersweet puzzle.
This broken character has the wisdom of machines but not of the human heart. Which can't be said of Kiarostami, who navigated a world of technology and miscommunication and plumbed it for all its complex drama.
The one thing that's for sure is that this masterly filmmaker is sufficiently open-minded to work wherever he chooses without compromising the integrity of his questions.
... "Like Someone in Love" drags, summoning ghosts of better Kiarostami films to little impact.
While the film doesn't have the complex ambiguity and thematic richness of its predecessor, it is a charming and unique addition to the Kiarostami canon.
Liked this mostly. Very interestingly filmed and looks great. I particularly like the part where she drives around Tokyo in the taxi. The opening scenes in the club are also interesting and leave you wondering exactly what's going on. Once she meets the elderly gentleman, it becomes a little less intriguing, but I still liked it. My complaints echo others - a little too abrupt to end and would have liked a little more tied up or explained. For example, did she sort her life out? What happened to the old man at the window? However, I get that this is more art than blockbuster, and like real life, maybe didn't have a clear ending or resolution.
Super Reviewer
Despite her engagement to young garage owner Noriaki (Kase), Akiko (Takanashi) moonlights as a high class prostitute to fund her college studies. One evening, her plans to meet her visiting grandmother are disrupted when her pimp orders Akiko to spend the night with retired sociology professor Takashi (Okuno). When she arrives, she finds a nervous elderly man who seems more interested in being a father figure to the young woman than indulging in any sexual activity. The next morning Takashi drops Akiko off at her college and encounters her irate fiance. Pretending to be Akiko's grandfather, Takashi finds the young man pouring out his emotions to him, but quickly discovers he possesses a violent streak. Not since the thirties, when central Europe's greatest film-makers fled fascist persecution to work in Hollywood, has cinema seen the level of cultural cross-pollination of the last few years. English actress Kristin Scott-Thomas has become French cinema's leading female star, appearing in more Gallic productions now than Anglo-Saxon ones. Earlier this year we saw the Australian director Cate Shortland working in Germany for the WWII tale 'Lore', despite not speaking a word of German. 'Like Someone in Love' is possibly the most curious example, a Japanese drama written and directed by an Iranian film-maker. While it doesn't quite feel like a native Japanese film, (there's far too much dialogue), Kiarostami's film seems like it could be based on a short story by someone like Haruki Murakami. This is both the strength and the weakness of 'Like Someone in Love'. The three characters are all interesting but Kiarostami's exploration of them would be far better served as a piece of literature rather than a motion picture. It's an excessively talky picture, with much of the dialogue serving as thinly disguised exposition. That said, there's enough to keep you engaged, thanks mainly to the performances of Takanashi and especially Okuno, who has the most interesting and pleasant face you'll see on any elderly gent. I'm forever arguing the case of ambiguity but even I found the ending of this film irritating. There's ambiguity and there's abruptness. Kiarostami opts for the latter in this case.
Another mediocre film from the over-rated Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami.
Kiarostami is off to a wonderful start in the first act, displaying a very refined direction, elegant camera movements and smart storytelling. Still, it is hard to see where he wants to go with this after the two characters meet, lacking a clear direction or purpose.
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