A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I found this Iranian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was an easy to remember title, but I didn't else about it, but critics gave it positive reviews, so I hoped it would be good, directed by Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us). Basically Hossein (Hossein Rezai) is a local stonemason who has become an actor, filming on location for the movie Zendegi Edame Darad (And Life Goes On). Outside the film set, Hossein makes a marriage proposal to his leading lady, a student named Tahereh (Tahereh Ladanian), she was orphaned by an earthquake. Hossein is poor and illiterate, because of this the girl's family are insulted by his proposal, and the girl avoids him as a result. Even during filming, she continues to evade him, she also seems to have trouble grasping the difference her role in the film and her real-life self. Things get more complicated as Hossein continues to pursue the affections of the young actress while the filming goes on, the Film Director (Mohamad Ali Keshavarz) learns about this and tries to advise him what to do. The girl manages to finish the scene while Hossein attempts to woo her, she departs, and Hossein runs after her. In the final scene, at a great distance, the girl finally gives an answer to Hossein, we are left with him running through a green field, and back through the olive trees, and we never know what the response is given by the girl. The documentary style of filming is interesting, the director pokes fun at the filmmaking process, with memorable take after take sequences of the lead actor going up and down a flight of stairs and messing up a line, this film blurs the lines between life and art, and it has some good sights of Iran's northlands, a reasonable drama. Worth watching!

One can write prose, one can write poetry, one can write poetry inside prose... One makes movies. Period.And what if it is more detailed? How can we say it? The people in this move have nothing left but their humanity, kindness and customs. Humanity is not enough, kindness is not enough. Customs are not helping. A combination of them, patience and belief in success to make one's life happy... Humans stripped to bare necessities, food, water, shelter, remain humane and kind and strive for happiness. The end shot ties all the ties tight, like a poem.Pure poetry.

Following a film he made a few years backs, a director returns to the area where it was shot to try and find the actors who he used. The area has been hit by a large earthquake and the film is designed to help the area as well as follow up on the people. Among the cast is a young man, Hossein, who has fallen for one of the other actors and seeks to marry her – but her grandmother refuses to consider any such offer; ironic perhaps, considering Hossein's character in the film is married to the very girl he loves in real life.While making the sequel (or follow up) to "Where is the friend's house?" Abbas Kiarostami met a man who told him that he was married 5 days after the devastating earthquake (50,000 dead) that is the foundation for that film. A few years later Kiarostami decided to use this man and his story as the basis for this rather intriguing film within a film. The dual plots are interesting and work well in contrast to one another to fill out a plot that is not the easiest to get excited about or really engaged by. In this regard many viewers may feel bored or distant from the material as it doesn't quite build a story that well. The "film within a film" concept is interesting but it produces many scenes that are replayed over and over (different takes) without the repeats adding a great deal – in fact they seem to take away from the rhythm of the film more than give to it. As with other Kiarostami films, it is slow and requires work, but even if you are willing to put yourself into it, it is still not easy work.The characters and place are interesting and it does feel like these are over and above the material itself. The film will be of greater interest to those who have seen the other films in the trilogy as the places and people have history to them, but they are still well enough done to avoid it being key to the film. The cast do pretty well throughout; Rezai steals the show with a good performance; Ladanian is totally absent and her performance will be hard (was hard!) for a Western audience to appreciate. Keshavarz does pretty well in the role of the director.Overall this is not a film to come to unless you have seen at least one of the other two films (ideally both. It is watchable without this knowledge but even with it, it is hard work at times. The narrative is slow and not that important apparently and, although the characters and places are interesting, I did struggle to really get emotionally involved in the film. Interesting enough to be worth a look but don't expect too much from it.

I enjoy "art films" a lot, they usually may lack means but have great ideas behind, but this one was just poorly shot, had plenty of scenes in which nothing was happening (and then many others that were repeated again and again), it had no music, and then the last scene confirmed me that I had been completely cheated by an unskilled director (that tried to make his flaws as virtues) and by some snobbish critics.