I was already kinda planning on carpet bombing Netflix’s offices but now I’m definitely gonna do it just to see if I can get a Season 3 of American Vandal spoofing this movie out of it.
Yeah, I dunno, docufiction’s one of my least favorite subsubgenres of my least favorite subgenre cinema vérité, but even I can admit Kiarostami kinda pops off with this one. It’s still uncomfortably exploitative, even in its attempts at deconstruction, but I’m not gonna feign like this is Dahmer levels of repulsive. At worst it’s an intrusive, patronizing fluff piece in the same vein as the original article. I’m as fed up with true crime as anyone but be serious. That final scene is about as close as anything like this has ever gotten to authentically shedding its own complicity, which is good enough for me, generally speaking.
RIP Hossain Sabzian — hopefully the afterlife has Letterboxd, and you and Kiarostami are chatting about your four faves up there to this day. <3