Close-Up

A film buff on trial for impersonating the famed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf becomes the centerpiece of Kiarostami’s continuously surprising treatise on the intersections of cinematic fiction, documentary, and the construction of both social reality and personal identity. After the arrest of Hossein Sabzian, a cineaste/grifter who wormed his way into a family’s home by promising to make a movie about them, Kiarostami decides not only to film the trial and its aftermath, but also to recreate the entire affair, complete with Sabzian, the family, and the real Makhmalbaf for good measure. For Werner Herzog, Close-Up is simply “the greatest documentary about filmmaking I have ever seen.”