Abbas Kiarostami, always gravitating toward the province of documentary, here goes further than usual, though perhaps not all the way to the very last toe. The film chronicles true events, the arrest and trial of an imposter who had insinuated himself into a middle-class home in the guise of Kiarostami's directorial colleague, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The real-life participants, including the imposter and in the closing moments Makhmalbaf himself, appear on screen as themselves, sometimes in re-enactments of earlier events. Other events, most notably the trial, seem to be filmed as they are happening. (The lower-quality image in the courtroom confers a kind of certificate of authenticity, as does the off-and-on microphone during the candid-camera footage of the climactic — and very touching and funny — confrontation between Makhmalbaf and his impersonator.) The making of the film becomes an actual subject of the film when Kiarostami — never clearly seen but clearly heard — seeks permission to shoot the trial, first from the defendant in jail and then from a skeptical bureaucrat: "There's nothing about this case that's worth filming." Official opinion notwithstanding, the case is something of a mystery. What, in the first place, was the imposter's motive? Members of the victimized family suspect burglary, but the imposter asks that his love of art, his "passion" for cinema, his longing to take part in it, be considered in mitigation. And of course the blaring irony is that now here he is, taking part in it as the leading player in a film about himself. But is he still "playing" a role in the same sense that he was "playing" Makhmalbaf? The viewer is required continually to check the level of reality in front of him (finally a good use for the term "reality check"), and the intellectual stimulation extends well beyond the fascinating facts of the case. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.