'Close-Up'

This is supposed to be genius. One of the best films of the 1990s. I think that's because it's Iranian. If this were Indian or English or American, it wouldn't be as cool, but because Iran is so mysterious and kind of creeps us out, we overvalue any art coming from that country.

It is an unusual set-up. It's part documentary, part drama.

It's a documentary by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami about a man named Hossain Sabzian, who had convinced some random family that he was Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and that he wante dto do a film about them.

Of course, Sabzian is not Makhmalbaf, the family discovers this, calls the police and Sabzian is put on trial for fraud. They think he was intending to burgle them. Judging from his responses, he's kind of a nut, obsessed with movies and living in some pretend world. More or less, he's delusional.

Kiarostami films Sabzian's trial. Meanwhile, he also directs this acted story of how the fraud went down. Acted by the guy that did the actual fraud. He's goodball/criminal/actor.

I don't know why it's appealing. It's boring to be perfectly honest. It's an interesting story, sure. But kind of in that wacky, "Listen to what I just read in the newspaper!" type of things. Something that Yahoo! would put on the front of their mainpage to pique the random Internet-goer's attention.