Like Someone in Love (2012)

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Like Someone in Love (2012) – A. Kiarostami

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s latest film was shot in Japan in Japanese with Japanese actors – does the director even know Japanese? If not, this just adds another layer of mind-bendingness to his legendary experiments with perception and reality (Close-Up, Through the Olive Trees, Taste of Cherry, etc.).  Not unlike his strategy with Certified Copy (his first film outside of Iran, with Juliette Binoche in French) in 2010, Kiarostami keeps viewers confused about the nature of the relationships between the key protagonists here.  Rin Takanashi is Akiko, a part-time escort/prostitute, who is assigned to visit retired Professor Watanabe (Tadashi Okuno) by her boss, a former student of his.  Viewers can’t quite guess what will happen as the hyper-realistic plot unfolds (Kiarostami loves shots of people driving and talking or reacting).  Perhaps the title is the key:  each character shows us one way that people might act “like someone in love” (sung by Ella Fitzgerald on the soundtrack).  Sexual love, jealous love, grandfatherly and grandmotherly love, marital love, friendship love, and other forms of affection all make an appearance.  However, violence may also be ever at bay as the inverse of love.  As always, Kiarostami refuses to spell things out – and thus love’s sweet mystery is ours to discover…in Japanese.