Film Review: Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990). Director: Abbas Kiarostami.

 

In 'Crime and Punishment', Dostoyevsky illustrates the psychology of man. He says, man will always choose life over death notwithstanding the circumstances. However, that was written and said very accurately a long time ago. As humanity performed the dual role of leading and envisaging revolutions, the versions of reality started changing. The initial need of survival changed to a desire for a good life. 

Philosophers like Plato opposed nepotism, and advocated equal opportunities for all, eg: if a farmer's son had the potential to be a king, he would be provided with all the opportunities for the same. But, there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, and the reality is more often a contradiction of utopia. 

Abbas Kiarostami's 'Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990)', a Docu-film streaming on 'The Criterion Channel', Youtube is a subtle depiction of reality. It has a simple, yet complex premise that out of a family of five members, two are interested in acting and are hence duped by a charlatan by the original name of Hossein Sabzian who impersonates a famous Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and under that pretext borrows 1900 Tomans (Approx.Eighty Three Thousand INR) but has no intention of duping them. Sabzian is imprisoned for the crime. 

As the story takes is based on real events and involves real people and no actors, the audience sees themselves on screen. Along with the realities of the society we live in,  Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) points out the difference between Criminal Law and Criminal Psychology. It may prima facie appear that a crime has been committed and the law corroborates it, but in some cases the criminal feels that somehow his act is justified and that the ends justify the means. Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990), however asks a poignant question: what if there are no ends? what if there is inveiglery with no desire to inveigle or dupery sans duping delight? Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) is a novel Docu-film and depicts the actual Court proceedings of the case. 

Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) characterizes a situation in which the criminal feels sorry for his victims, but commits the crime nevertheless out of self-loathing, and justifies the crime out of narcissism. The cinema revolves around deception, and as the criminal narrates the series of events to the judge, the audience will feel sympathy as well as empathy for Sabzian but will of course proscribe his criminal act. 

Crime is a reflection of whatever is wrong with the society. The difference in the attitude of the people towards the rich and the poor, lack of employment, a humongous gap between the rich and the poor where the rich only keep getting richer and the poor are on the verge of destitution, is all highlighted in Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) without in any way glorifying the crime and/or the criminal. 

Abbas Kiarostami has depicted the societal structure in Iran, the psychology of Iranians in general, the Iranian media, the difference between the crime, criminal, the circumstances leading to the crime, and the factors that constituted the crime outside of the "ingredients" of a crime as is mentioned in law-books and the hair-splitting distinction between intention and motive. The ways of the world and the ways of the corrupt administration where each wants to further their own ends. It is as if the film asks why is righteousness only expected of the working class or of the ones who have just enough to get by? Why are pelfers and peculators always left untouched?

Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) is a docu-film of the people and for the people in quintessence. While pure fiction movies like 'Parasite (2019)' explored the societal gap in the contemporary period, Nema-ye-Nazdik (AKA Close-up, 1990) did so in 1990 with a more subtle base and, where the audience can dually place themselves as the aggrieved party who have been deceived, as well as the criminal who deceived them so. 

Overall, the cinema is wonderful for the mammoth feat it accomplished in 1990, and is way ahead of its time in its depiction of reality of the sufferings of humanity with subtlety. It would certainly remind the audience of Rumi's couplet which goes as: 

"Out beyond the ideas of,

right-doing and wrongdoing,

there is a field. 

I will meet you there." 

MY TAKE: 9.8/10. 

Please subscribe to:  https://bff-anewdimension.blogspot.com/

Author: Ms. Radhika Sunil Vaidya. 

Email i.d. : radhika.vaidya98@gmail.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/radhika.vaidya.50

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-vaidya-908aa1167/
Image Courtesy:   Google, Pinterest.