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Sad news indeed... Hope things go well for AK, hopefully with his full recovery...

Things are looking up marginally for AK, hopefully...

Apparently thank goodness it's not cancer he's suffering from, he underwent a procedure to remove a benign colon polyp, and his condition is deemed as suffering from a severe gastrointestinal disease, however discharge from hospital is anticipated on 26th April... Wish him well with his recovery...

2016 isn't letting up. Abbas Kiarostami

Calvin wrote:2016 isn't letting up. Abbas Kiarostami

Fuck. I was really hoping he was going to get better.

Desparately sad news... Such a great loss to cinema & life... I spent some time with him which I'll never forget (a great admirer)...

Things looked bleak when Marin Karmitz of MK2 organised an air ambulance for AK from Tehran to Paris just recently...

Holy crap that's a loss - obviously there's the great films from the late 80s on, but I'd love someone to compile the mid 70s stuff onwards, up until Where is the Friend's Home?

Terrible. Even at his age he had it in him to make more masterpieces. F*** 2016.

Very sad news. A "major" loss!

Completely devastating. One of the greatest, most spiritual and most humane directors in cinema history.

Let's hope Godard will survive 2016! [-o<

IMDB doesn't indicate, but did he have any projects he was working on cinematically?

perkizitore wrote:Let's hope Godard will survive 2016! [-o<

hahahahahaha. But, really let's hope not.

carmilla mircalla wrote:

perkizitore wrote:Let's hope Godard will survive 2016! [-o<

hahahahahaha. But, really let's hope not.

For shame.

I didn't think any news like this could sadden me more than Bowie but I'm crushed. Seeing the Koker Trilogy and Taste of Cherry when they screened at the PFA years ago was life-changing and Close-Up remains one of my favorite films ever. My parents are from Iran but I've only been there once when I was too young to remember it; experiencing those landscapes and dialects and emotions through his films is maybe the closest I'll ever get. I just hope more of his films will be available in decent quality on home video soon.

His death appears as the top headline on the Google News Entertainment column. Pleasing to see the extensive coverage, especially for a foreign filmmaker not many people outside of cinephile circles would recognize. While Kiarostami has been going under treatment for his cancer, it sounded like the word was that he was eventually ready to edit and complete his next film. Now one of his filmmaking friends will have to finish the process to have it complete by the end of this year.

At least he died a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences

Not even, unless one of his deathbed acts was to accept their invitation

chiendent wrote:I didn't think any news like this could sadden me more than Bowie but I'm crushed. Seeing the Koker Trilogy and Taste of Cherry when they screened at the PFA years ago was life-changing and Close-Up remains one of my favorite films ever. My parents are from Iran but I've only been there once when I was too young to remember it; experiencing those landscapes and dialects and emotions through his films is maybe the closest I'll ever get. I just hope more of his films will be available in decent quality on home video soon.

Well, yes indeed. Bowie was the first big blow, and then came Rivette (and Prince, and so many others). But Kiarostami somewhat feels like the saddest loss of them all. I came late to this director, and initially I didn't even like "Taste of Cherry" very much, but soon I was totally amazed by the man's gentle and at the same time stubbornly minimalist and provocative cinema. The Koker Trilogy indeed, but also and perhaps foremost "Ten" - which is a perfect film and should be much higher cherished than Panahi's "Taxi", which I also like - and that wonderful and radical hymn to both women and cinema that is "Shirin". If I remember correctly, there were rumours that Criterion is going to release the Koker Trilogy in the foreseeable future. If so, the man's death should hopefully speed things up in this respect. These three films are probably the most touching and intimate films Kiarostami made, and completely central to his vision.

Where Is The Friend's House? is on their Hulu channel and they hinted The Koker Trilogy was coming at least once. So they are putting it out, just a matter of when.

Hopefully very soon. Those are the films of his in most dire need of attention it seems to me and that's been so for a long time now.

Abbas Kiarostami is acclaimed as one of cinema's most intriguing contemporary directors. But he learned his craft making films about oral hygiene and school discipline. ("The eight short films made by Abbas Kiarostami between 1970 and 1982 offer an interesting riposte to critics who claimed during those years that they knew what was going on in world cinema. Even in Iran, where the shorts were made, none constituted much of an event. And considering how deceptively modest they are, they probably never would have attracted much notice anywhere if their director hadn't gone on to make a string of masterful features over the past 15 years (the most recent of which, Ten, is about to open here). Yet there's nothing else in cinema quite like them." - Jonathan Rosenbaum)

This is absolutely crushing. In retrospect, the only film of Kiarostami that totally bowled me over was The Wind Will Carry Us -- a film I watched once, over 6 years ago, and yet still remember vividly today much better than many films I watched in the past year. I also liked Taste of Cherry a lot, and Through the Olive Trees was slightly less impactful but still interesting. If Certified Copy left me slightly cold, it was the kind of reaction where I knew immediately that I wanted to see it again and that I could almost already feel myself appreciating the intricacies of the film more (it certainly had a lovely final shot, as I recall). Those four are the only films of his I've seen, despite promising myself I'd watch Like Someone In Love after seeing it streaming on Netflix for a long time -- a shame that it's no longer there, as it looks really good and is a favorite of many people I know. I'll have to seek that out now, along with of course Close-Up and all of the others. There is something beautiful about the humanism of his films, that and the incredible patience; in the world of "slow cinema" Kiarostami is the real deal, yet there's always a beauty there, a happiness or salvation or hint of a smile at the end which dour materialists like Bela Tarr never dream of.

Along with someone like Claire Denis, or Edward Yang, or Jia, Kiarostami was one of a global group of directors, with a certain warmth to compliment their rigorous aesthetic and who hit it big mostly in the 90s. The loss of someone like Abbas is more than just the loss of a great filmmaker, it feels like the beginning of a loss of an era... something bigger than himself. His films were so wonderful and unique that it's hard to envision a world without them.

His statement about "boring" or quiet/slow films (from an interview featured on the Criterion Taste of Cherry I believe) is one of my favorite quotations about cinema, one that I've found to be exceedingly true, and to apply very much to his own films as well as many of my favorites:

"I think a good film is one that has a lasting power, and you start to reconstruct it right after you leave the theater. There are a lot of films that seem to be boring, but they are decent films. On the other hand, there are films that nail you to your seat and overwhelm you to the point that you forget everything, but you feel cheated later. These are the films that take you hostage.

I absolutely don’t like the films in which the filmmakers take their viewers hostage and provoke them. I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. I think those films are kind enough to allow you a nice nap and not leave you disturbed when you leave the theater.

Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake me up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks. Those are the kinds of films I like."

Rest in peace, Abbas.

Apt tribute from Martin Scorsese...

“I was deeply shocked and saddened when I heard the news of Abbas Kiarostami’s death. He was one of those rare artists with a special knowledge of the world, put into words by the great Jean Renoir: ‘Reality is always magic.’ For me, that statement sums up Kiarostami’s extraordinary body of work. Some refer to his pictures as ‘minimal’ or ‘minimalist,’ but it’s actually the opposite: every scene in Taste of Cherry or Where Is the Friend’s House? is overflowing with beauty and surprise, patiently and exquisitely captured. I got to know Abbas over the last 10 or 15 years. He was a very special human being: quiet, elegant, modest, articulate, and quite observant – I don’t think he missed anything. Our paths crossed too seldom, and I was always glad when they did. He was a true gentleman, and, truly, one of our great artists.”