10

The Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami burst onto the international film scene in the early 1990s and was widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and talented modern-day directors. His major features — including Through the Olive Trees (1994), Taste of Cherry (1997) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) — are relatively modest in scale, contemplative, and humanist in tone.

In 2002, with 10, Kiarostami broke new ground by fixing one or two digital cameras on a car's dashboard to film ten conversations between the driver (Mania Akbari) and her various passengers. The results are astonishing: though formally rigorous, even austere, and documentary-like in style, 10 succeeds both as an emotionally affecting human drama and as a critical analysis of everyday life in modern Tehran.

In his study of the film, Geoff Andrew considers 10 within the context of Kiarostami's career, the renaissance of Iranian cinema, and international film culture. Drawing on a number of detailed interviews he conducted with both Kiarostami and his lead actress, Andrew sheds light on the unusual methods used in making the film, its political relevance, and its remarkably subtle aesthetic. He also argues that 10 was an important turning point in the career of a filmmaker who was not only one of contemporary cinema's most accomplished practitioners but also one of its most radical experimentalists.