Close-up

Hossein Sabzian is a fanatical film buff who deceives a family into believing he is the popular Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. He promises to give the eldest son a leading role in his next film and discusses with the husband which trees should be removed in order to get better shots of the house.

At first, the family is pleased to meet the man and they feel honored by his attention, but they eventually grow suspicious. A journalist friend exposes the lie and the police arrest Hossein Sabzian for fraud.

Just as reality and film are jumbled in Hossein Sabzian’s life, Close-up is set on the border between fiction and documentary. The film includes footage of the impostor’s trial and dramatizations of the events leading up to it. Because all the characters play themselves, it is hard to tell where reality ends and fiction begins.

Director Abbas Kiarostami’s style of filming keeps up constantly aware of the presence of the camera and its influence on what is unfolding before us. The boundary between film and reality, between fiction and documentary, is blurrier than we sometimes think.