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Spine 998 will be the real spine 1000, hopefully they use it to finally release Bottle Rocket

The "more" has been removed and replaced with:

Homework (1989), a feature-length documentary by Abbas Kiarostami, newly restored

New interview with scholar Hamid Naficy

I had hoped some of the educational shorts would be added, but Homework is good to see and appropriate as a bonus film for this collection. Can't wait for this release.

Edit: I'm sure a reissue of Taste of Cherry will include a bonus film or two, but I'm worried now that the rest will fall by the wayside.

Nice. I hope that means First Graders will get a separate release.

Beaver
And Life Goes On.....Through the Olive Trees

They look pretty awesome

Shame beaver doesn't include any caps of Homework. I do hope we get another announcement soon and Criterion doesn't take forever like with Wenders to release everything

I get shivers just looking at those caps.

FrauBlucher wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:30 pm Beaver
And Life Goes On.....Through the Olive Trees

They look pretty awesome

Where is the Friend's House?

n/m

I've now explored the extras and rewatched Where Is the Friend's House?

The feature looks wonderful, even if there are a few shots that show evidence of deteriorated elements. The extras are solid, if not exactly lavish, with Kiarostami's charming interview the standout. (Homework is too substantial an inclusion to count, in my mind, as a mere extra.)

The weakest extra is (as with 24 Frames), the critics interview, in which both of them are absurdly coy about what makes these three films a trilogy. They suppose you could technically call it a trilogy, because the three films are all shot in the same place. That's not what makes them a trilogy, and the connection between the three films is self-evident to everybody who watches them except, it seems, these two befuddled so-called experts.

Spoiler: avert your gaze if you've been living under a rock or only watching super hero movies for the last thirty years.

What makes them a trilogy is that the second film is about the people who made the first film, and the third film is about the people who made the second film. They're nested inside one another like Russian dolls, each successive film representing a reality external to that of the one that preceded it. If the designer of the Criterion package gets this (and can express it with elegance and ingenuity), then spare me the cutesy critical tergiversation!

I can't help but wonder what is really going on with the coyness. Cheshire is just about the most knowledgeable one I can think of on Kiarostami and most well equipped to speak and write about him, so clearly he understands all this. So, once again, why the coyness?

There seems to be a bit of a weird dynamic in these conversations, with Cheshire deferring to Akrami to an odd extent. He's almost totally sidelined in the 24 Frames extra, and in this one you get a sense that he's itching to disagree about some things but can't bring himself to do it.

Thanks, zedz, for using the underused "tergiversation."
I watched Where is My Friend's House from this set with my family and it was a hit. My son (age 11) declared it one of his top 4 films of all time* and the next day said he wanted to watch it again right away.

(* It displaced the atrocious "Holmes and Watson," which will make you question his taste--as it should--but the other three are Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II and Godzilla.)

Your son is eleven already?!

It's a great film for kids because it takes the complexity of their moral dilemmas so seriously (when hardly any of the adults in the film do). And it acknowledges how hard it can be to do the right thing at any age, and how morally complex rectitude often is. In (successfully) navigating his particular challenge, and being unambiguously good throughout, Ahmad lies, disobeys his guardians, commits forgery, neglects his duties, inconveniences an aged invalid. . .

My daughter (10) really liked the first film as well. I was taken by how frustrated she was with the adults in the film and she became completely engrossed in it, probably for all the reasons zedz lists out.

The others don't work as well, not surprisingly. She couldn't get into the second one outside she wanted to make sure the boy was okay (she was really invested in the character). But to my surprise she was more into the third one, liked that it was about making the previous movie, and liked how it showed the backstory of the one "character." Though eventually she sighed and said "he is annoying and won't leave her alone."

But she was talking about Where is the Friend's House for a couple of days after.

"he is annoying and won't leave her alone."


truth hurts!

While a commentary track on each film would have been nice, Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum cover enough of the significance (ugh, this word is seemingly the only adjective in Rosenbaum’s vocabulary- my one gripe of the track) of the trilogy in theirs for And Life Goes On to make it the ideal film for scholarly analysis, if there had to be only one (which Rosenbaum hints that it did). There were several moments where the two hit on implications of some shots that gave me a new understanding of Kiarostami‘s cinematic philosophy of technique and process beyond the image (particularly the shot-reverse-shots as indicators of Kiarostami actually talking with the townsfolk vs. the actor, blending documentary and fiction a bit more clearly than I initially read).

Where is the Friend’s Home? will always be my favorite Kiarostami, and only gains more power with age and repeat viewings. Zedz mentioned how seriously this treats the moral problems of a child, and there is a surprising amount of complexity present in a movie that’s narratively and technically simplistic on the surface, as to how Ahmed must prioritize and ignore certain values to attain his primary moral goal. What makes the film so special is how we are given the opportunity to witness a mature life lesson that wanders through grey relativism unfold without focusing on irony or sacrifice or cognitive dissonance, as most films would take as the third act ‘problem’ but here aren’t of interest. This film is about the inherent drive to commit acts of empathy, the need to act in accordance with one’s moral compass, and the connection between people that is not learned but is within one’s essence, unclouded by culture, norms, or selfishness. This is one of the most optimistically humane films I’ve ever seen, and forces me to confront my own cynical side on each viewing, always a welcome and necessary experience to restore faith in mankind.

Watched all the films (the "trilogy" + Homework) and most of the extras. Really a wonderful set -- so pleased to have as good looking as possible representations of the films at long last. Friend's House might always be my favorite of the three films, but the other two delighted me nearly as much. So many touches of gentle and subtle humor (despite the dark underpinning of the two post-quake films). Unless one doesn't like Kiarostami's work at all, a must-have release.

Huh. I watched the clip for And Life Goes On on Criterion’s site before watching the film and noticed that the film leaves out the subtitles during the wide shot of the hill. Odd

I think _most_ of that is subtitled on the Blu-Ray (can't say every bit is -- from memory).

Michael Kerpan wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 5:20 am I think _most_ of that is subtitled on the Blu-Ray (can't say every bit is -- from memory).

Any chance you could check that at some point? Would be weird if it was my copy. I guess my player might be at fault too... but the subtitles for the following scene in the car were different also.

Can you recall what chapter this is in?

Chapter 5, around 32:50

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I think I like best whichever Koker film I am currently watching. In between viewings, Where Is the Friend's House returns to my default favorite spot. But when I am watching either of the other two, my sense of current joy takes over.

I really enjoyed the interview with the young male star of the film being made in the film. It finally answered questions I long had about one of the back stories behind the film. Extras also provided interesting details about the geography of the films...

I was overjoyed to finally be able to see a beautiful rendition of this film. I no longer need to keep the old VHS tape I previously had to rely on (but haven't been able to play for years -- since our PAL/SECAM player bit the dust)/

The silence is deafening...