ABBAS KIAROSTAMI - SHIRIN

The minimalist film Shirin is a notable twist in the artistic career of the Iranian master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (1940), an evolution he commenced with the earlier cinematographic performance piece Looking at Tazieh (2004). In this piece as in Shirin the (filmed) spectator and his/ her gaze forms the actual object and subject of the audiovisual work. Shirin consists of a montage of simple close-up long shots from some 100 women’s faces (amongst them Juliette Binoche, Niki Karimi, Golshifteh Farahani, Mahnaz Afshar and Taraneh Alidoosti). Seated in a theatre, they are watching a filmed lecture of Khosrow and Shirin, a mythic love story about female-sacrifice written by the famous Persian 12th century poet Nezami (Ganjavi). Creating a fascinating tension between film narrative and film imagery, we see the audience identifying itself with the heroin Shirin. In that sense, the Kiarostami’s film depicts the audience’s emotional involvement with the story and the text which is brought in between tragic, affective and kitsch, accompanied by a historical film score by Morteza Hananeh and Hossein Dehlavi. Although the film was premiered at the 65th Venice International Film Festival and that the brief appearance of Juliette Binoche resulted in a leading role in Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (2010), this brilliant example of cinema vérité is unknown to the Belgian audience.

Shirin - Abbas Kiarostami
2008, video, 91’, colour, Persian spoken, English subtitles