Having watched quite a few Kiarostami films, I ended up going for Correspondences. It’s one of those exhibitions wherein audio-visual elements take center stage as museum installations; an experience that sometimes turns out to be grating and very very confusing (case in point being ‘replay christian marclay‘ a couple of months back).
However, Correspondences was a brilliantly rewarding and moving experience. Viktor Erice and Abbas Kiarostami apparently never met in person till the exhibition but they maintained a very unique rapport with each other through a sort of creative dialogue that gave birth to this particular installation. Despite being from vastly different backgrounds, these two auteurs found common ground in their visions of childhood, memory and cinema. There are some very powerful images (photographs by Kiarostami especially) and an excellent black and white short film by Erice titled, Lifeline (video link). Two very interesting pieces by Kiarostami included projections of a sleeping couple (Sleepers) onto the floor and another ten minute projection of a sleeping child.
Occasionally, you do feel like a voyeur but then again, isn’t that what cinema is essentially about?
(Cross-posted on Couch-Critics)
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