Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Bread and Alley

Iranian cinema is everything what Hollywood, Bollywood or for that matter most European cinema isn’t. It’s introspective, reflective, memorable and celebrates storytelling in style. Thereby, offering the viewer an alternative to the vapid excess that constitutes most of mainstream Hollywood or Bollywood cinema today.

Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most influential and brilliant filmmakers to come out of Iran. Known primarily as a feature filmmaker, Kiarostami has a rare trait which most feature filmmakers don't possess. He is equally at ease with short films, documentaries and ad films.

Since, many of you would be familiar with his features, here’s a short that you shouldn’t miss. It’s called Bread and Alley. It was Kiarostami’s first short film which made him famous in Iran. The narration, music, casting and a simplistic storytelling technique you see here is something he adopts in his features too.

Every work of his has left passionate cine-lovers world over, in awe of his genius. This debut piece shot in 1970, moved me a lot when I caught it couple of years back. Check it out. I hope it leaves you with the same feeling.



Posted by Murali

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