Get the impression that this film was made by the director for himself and himself only, without any consideration towards the audience. The story is stupid and one that only a film director would come up with. Tbh i’d expect this type of indulgence and pretentiousness to come out of the Italian or french new wave. Very reminiscent of the worst of those films. All talk, nothing else. I mean it carries u along well enough, its just a nothing story. If it was any longer than it is it would become unbearable, no doubt. Just another so called masterpiece that would be of no interest to anyone outside filmmaking or criticism. I don’t hate it but i’m sick of mediocre shit being on top 100 lists. U won’t miss anything if u skip it. 5/10

The original title of the film is Nema-ye Nazdik.

I am proud that someone like Kiarostami was my compatriot.😎 This movie was life itself, full of normal and everyday twists and turns of life, full of pain, full of suffering, full of everything that constitutes life... 😔 It is true that everyone is an actor in his own life movie and what is a higher concept than this😊

absolutely unreal. like, how is this even real? or not real? or both? Close-Up folds reality in on itself so gently you don’t even notice you’ve slipped into something transcendent until it’s too late. it’s not just a film, it’s a philosophical sleight of hand, part courtroom drama, part identity crisis, part love letter to cinema itself. hossein sabzian is one of the most heartbreakingly compelling figures i’ve ever seen on screen. his sincerity cuts through every layer of artifice like a knife. kiarostami didn’t just blur the line between documentary and fiction, he made that line irrelevant. masterpiece.

To view Close-Up merely as a self-indulgent exercise by a director ignoring his audience is to overlook both its formal innovation and emotional depth. Kiarostami is not mimicking the French New Wave nor engaging in empty intellectualism; rather, he is exploring the blurred line between fiction and reality through a real-life story. The film’s supposed “lack of story” is precisely what reveals the universality in the mundane. It gently but powerfully examines why a man would pretend to be someone else, his faith in cinema, and how society shapes personal identity. To say that “no one outside of filmmakers would care” misses the point. Close-Up deals with themes like disappointment, identity, and class differences—deeply human experiences that resonate beyond the world of cinema. Of course, not every film must resonate with every viewer. But to dismiss this as mere intellectual posturing is to underestimate what cinema can do when it moves beyond traditional storytelling.