Master Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, 1940 - 2016

Abbas Kiarostami, an Iranian master filmmaker, passed away from gastrointestinal cancer in Paris today. As an avid fan of his humanistic, genre transcending films, I can say with a certain conviction that we've lost one of the greatest artists in the world of cinema.

It was his film, Taste of Cherry, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Fest in 1997 that introduced poetic, meta-fiction laiden Iraninan cinema to the world and put many Kiarostami contemporaries (Jafar Panahi, Asghar Farhadi, Moshen makhmalbaf) on the world cinema map.

But it was seeing one of his Koker trilogy, Wind Will Carry Us, that was a watershed moment for me in my cinematic education. I've never seen such a humanistic and poetic cinema before and the film made me scramble for anything Iranian afterwards.

Over the years, even though his films were never overtly political (although they could easily be seen as Iranian sociopolitical fable), he found filmmaking increasingly difficult within Iran under the government censorship. I reckon it was exactly that transcending subtle artistry that fooled the censorship for a long time. Thankfully for us, it resulted in two international productions - Italy set Certified Copy in 2011 and Japan set Like Someone in Love in 2013.

I had an honor and pleasure to interview Abbas Kiarostami in 2013 when his film Like Someone in Love played at NYFF. As expected, he was the warmest, wisest, humbliest, most thoughtful artist I've ever encountered in my short career as a film critic.

Kiarostami was not only a film director, but a renowned poet as well. Succinct and deceptively simple, his poetry was very much akin to his cinema or vice versa. Ill leave you with one of his short poems from his book of poetry walking with the Wind, published in 2002:


My interview with Kiarostami

Rest in Peace, master.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, dead at 46

I don't go around announcing someone's passing like some gossip newspaper columnist. But this afternoon, when I heard Philip Seymour Hoffman found dead in his New York apartment, possibly by heroin overdose, I can't help but great sadness overtaking me. It's not that he was my favorite actors of all time or anything, but he was one of those actors who were always solid and watchable on screen. I remember him playing bit parts in Hollywood movies, then being typecast in indie films as 'that creepy fat guy'. He was not your typical handsome movie star. But his talent was too enormous, too great for people to ignore.

Most memorable character he played, for me, was in Charlie Kaufman's magnum opus, Synecdoche, New York, as a long suffering writer, beaten down by life, ambition and carrying the burden of having a creative mind. He used his physicality and awkwardness fully in the biopic Capote, garnering much deserved recognition and fame. He also shined as a larger than life but ultimately emperor with no clothes in PT Anderson's The Master, the slight play on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. I'll watch Mission Impossible III tonight, just because he was in it (I've heard he is good in it, as usual). RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman, I'll miss you.