☆ ☆ ☆ ½24 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.
