Ten
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Country: Iran / France
Year: 2002
Runtime: 89 minutes
Color / Dolby
As she roams the streets of Tehran in her car, a recently divorced woman (Mania Akbari) chauffeurs a rotating cast of passengers, from her combative young son, to a heartbroken wife abandoned by her husband, to a defiant young sex worker going about her business. Fully embracing the minimalist freedoms of digital filmmaking by shooting entirely on two cameras fixed to the vehicle's dashboard, Kiarostami crafts a miraculous example of slice-of-life docufiction that explores the experiences of women in contemporary Iran. Capturing revealing moments of everyday human interaction, Ten uses its simple premise as a vehicle for a remarkably rich, perceptive look at the tension between the structure of a patriarchal society and the universal need for personal freedom.