Ten (2002)

After his 2001 shot-on-video documentary, ABC Africa, Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami declared that he was abandoning film forever in favor digital video. 10 is his first digital video narrative feature, and he uses the new technology brilliantly to create a radically minimalist film that bears his undeniable artistic stamp even as it reduces his directorial presence to the bare minimum. Shot entirely inside a car using cameras fixed to the dashboard, the film depicts ten conversations between a woman (Mania Akbari) and a succession of passengers. These include her argumentative young son who is bitter about her divorce from his father, an elderly woman who prays at the mosque three times a day, a heartbroken friend, and a prostitute whose gruff-voiced monologue provides a look at the rarely-seen underbelly of Iranian society. Far from boring, the film's aggressively reductive structure (each conversation is prefaced by a number, and many scenes only show one participant in the conversation) becomes more and more fascinating as it progresses, and, as in many Kiarostami films, small human gestures take on great weight. Akbari, who appears onscreen in every scene, is a striking presence: a bold, very modern woman despite the Islamic head covering she is required to wear. In all, 10 marks a new direction in the creative development of one of the world's most innovative filmmakers. It not only sets a new standard for creative use of digital video, it also, for the first time in Kiarostami's career, investigates the lives of Iranian women through the accumulated details of everyday conversation. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide