Close-Up
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Critics Sentiment
The real Mohsen Makhmalbaf appears and meets Sabzian after his release
Empty spray paint can rolls slowly down the street outside the Ahankhah home
The film's biggest upward swing occurs between the Ahankhah family testimony segment (score 7.7) and the verdict and forgiveness segment (score 8.4), before surging further to the transcendent Makhmalbaf appearance (score 9.1), a rise of 1.4 points across two adjacent beats.
Audience sentiment for Close-Up builds steadily from an already strong opening, with reviewers consistently praising Kiarostami's oblique camera strategy and the film's radical blurring of documentary and fiction. The courtroom testimony sequences are widely identified as the intellectual and emotional heart of the film, generating genuine moral ambiguity around Sabzian that reviewers find compelling rather than alienating. The final act, culminating in Makhmalbaf's appearance and the motorbike ride, is treated by nearly all reviewers as a transcendent payoff that elevates the film into masterpiece territory.
Full cast
Hossain Sabzian
Self
Monoochehr Ahankhah
Self
Mahrokh Ahankhah
Self
Abolfazl Ahankhah
Self
Mehrdad Ahankhah
Self
Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi
Self
Hossain Farazmand
Reporter
Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni
Family Friend
Hooshang Shamaei
Taxi Driver
Mohammad Ali Barrati
Soldier
Davood Goodarzi
Sergeant
Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi
Judge
Hassan Komaili
Court Recorder
Davood Mohabbat
Court Recorder
Hassan Farazmand
Self
Hushang Shahai
Self
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Self
Abbas Kiarostami
Self
Crew
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