24 Frames (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

24 Frames (2017) – A. Kiarostami

It’s tempting to read too much into the images that Abbas Kiarostami provides for our contemplation in this, his final posthumous film. After all, Kiarostami’s modus operandi was to provide viewers with often ambiguous sequences and to allow us to cogitate about them (often in ways which the director clearly anticipated and then responded to). He seemed to most enjoy playing with the constructs of “reality” and “fiction” -- so much so that in his masterpiece Close-Up, 1990, he asked the protagonists of a genuine newsworthy event to recreate it later for his cameras, with viewers left pondering the effects of the insertion of director and audience into the action. In other films, he left us wondering about his intentions, such as when he filmed only the members of the audience (famous Iranian actresses) watching a play rather than the play itself. Such experiments tended to have a rippling effect on the viewer’s thoughts, taking in not only the images onscreen but also the directorial purpose behind them, our personal reactions, and the meta-cognition that ties them together. 24 Frames was not finished at the time of Kiarostami’s death from cancer in July 2016.  Following a new methodology, he selected a number of his own photographs (as well as a few famous paintings, such as Brueghel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow) and then asked himself what might have happened immediately before or after the snapshot was taken. Then, he embellished the still image with digital animation, footage shot elsewhere, and sound or music. Often these embellishments are birds, particularly crows and seagulls. Other animals, such as cows, horses, deer, and wolves also appear. Each experiment takes approximately 4 ½ minutes and there are 24 in total. Whether or not these final 24 are the ones that Kiarostami ultimately would have selected for a film and in this order is unclear.  They do overlap and share similarities but unlike the similarly anecdotal work of Roy Andersson, they do not seem to comment or respond to each other, nor ultimately add up to a particularly salient theme. Mostly, they are quiet and meditative, often snowscapes, at the beach, or gazing out a window frame (which changes its geometrical pattern across sequences). A few (but only a few) have punchlines or a concluding event. Some reviewers have suggested that they are akin to very artistic screensavers. Others have tried to find Kiarostami’s intentions or meanings, suggesting loneliness vs. solidarity or another version of his interest in reality (the photograph) vs. fiction (the modifications) encouraging viewers to ponder each sequence’s raison d’etre.  I focused intently at first, engaging all of my mental powers to understand what was in front of me, then (as the repetitions piled on) I focused on my personal reactions, thinking that this is what Kiarostami wanted. I suspected that there were some unknowable elements (the relationship of the music, opera perhaps, to the images) that made interpretation difficult.  Then, I began to drift off and my subconscious merged with the images (cows in dreamscape). And then the final sequence (frame 24) showed a woman similarly asleep in front of a screen (showing the final image from The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946) in front of a window frame showing a windy outdoor scene. Perhaps there is really more here than met my eye or perhaps these sequences were only the early sketches and experimental preludes to something that would have been more fully realised if Kiarostami had not passed away.  Now, we will never know.