What it’s about
Driving around the congested streets of Tehran in her car, an unnamed middle-class divorcee (Akbari) picks up and chats with various passengers, including her imperious, petulant young son (Maher). Chatting with each rider in turn, the woman’s intimate conversations reveal a great deal about contemporary attitudes toward marriage, domestic life, morality, and religion in a culture we rarely get to see from the inside out.
Why we love it
Shot on two digital video cameras mounted on the dashboard of a roving car, “Ten” has an illicit, candid-camera documentary feel, though the naturalistic exchanges between Akbari and her passengers an old woman, a prostitute, family members were mostly scripted. All the more reason to marvel at Kiarostami’s conceptual chutzpah, as well as the performances by Akbari and her most argumentative co-pilot Maher, a young scold whose sometimes callous remarks about his parents’ divorce reflect the gender politics of modern-day Iran. “Ten” might be confined to a car seat, but its revelations feel all-encompassing.
Mania Akbari, Amin Maher Abbas Kiarostami