10 on Ten

In this self-portrait of an artist in his natural habitat (the driver's seat of a car)‚ Kiarostami offers his teachings on movies and on what he himself makes, which may be something else altogether. Taking his 2002 film Ten, shot with a stationary video camera on the dashboard of a car, as a case in point, he dissects his approach to filmmaking throughout his oeuvre. He has a lesson plan: the film is cleverly divided into ten topics: The Camera, The Subject, The Script, The Location, The Music, The Actor, The Setting, The Accessories, The Director, and the mysterious Last Lesson. Kiarostami has a very idiosyncratic approach to nine out of these ten topics -- idiosyncratic, but not without a theoretical and philosophical basis. 10 on Ten opens up the artist's philosophy while while he remains closed, and tightly framed, in a car.