Popular reviews

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  Review by Stephanie ★★★★½ 1

  women be driving and questioning the patriarchy

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★ 4

  - And Life Goes On... (1992)
  - Through the Olive Trees (1994)
  - Taste of Cherry (1997)
  - The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

  These four spectacles proved, among many things, one peculiar aspect: Kiarostami is the best director ever to film conversations and extraordinarily absorbing journeys inside cars. He is a fan of in-car scenes and the astonishing rural and natural landscapes surrounding the four wheels.

  Well, why not make a whole film about it??

  An idea sounding as insane as the degree of quality of the resulting film, Ten provides 10 insanely realistic journeys through the streets of Tehran seen through the eyes of a middle-class Tehran female car driver with many passengers, including her own son. The…

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  Review by Varghese ★★★★★ 4

  "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation" - Plato

  Abbas Kiarostami encapsulates middle class trials and tribulation in an 89 minute masterclass; who knew conversations could be this engrossing.

  P.S - I fell in love with Mania Akbari :-)

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  Review by Marcissus ★★★

  the kid "actor" in this is so good, it's like they told him he could eat lunch after they finished filming and then just kept doing take after take after take. just pure hungry rage. we've all been there. king shit

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  Review by PopcornIdeology ★★★★

  0.5%. That’s the percentage of Ten that takes place outside of the taxi. As I’ve watched Kiarostami’s work, I’ve noticed he had a clear fascination with cars, as his characters seem to be driving more than they are walking. For a while I wondered why Kiarostami consistently resorted back to this recurring imagery, and I think this 0.5% of Ten has gotten me one step closer to a definitive answer.
  
  Ten is a Iranian film composed of ten separate scenes, all framed the exact same way revolving around one female taxi driver as she talks with a mixture of people including her son, an old lady, and her sister. The film itself is clearly a examination of the role of women…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black ★★★★ 5

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Watched with friends. Hard to get past wanting to strangle that child, and I was in the bathroom for the shaved head reveal. But I still got to watch that amazing, natural discussion in the dark.

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  Review by leia ★★★★ 4

  it’s surprising how such a simple setup can inspire such deep and profound commentary and provoke such impactful and true emotion. this film lies in the simple premise and how it captures the daily torment, faith, and triumph of these people's lives. its observations on women in Iran are incredibly insightful. the various conversations give many perspectives, giving a well-rounded view of the social and political landscape for Iranian women in a country that discriminates against them. for the minimalism - one car, one camera, two camera angles - well, one focused on the driver or the passenger. back and forth conversations that reveal more in what is not said than in what is. no car chases. no explosions. the…

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★ 2

  Like all Abbas Kiarostami's films, Ten has an uncomplicated form and structure that conceals delicate anecdotes of human nature and human relations.  It's a radically minimalist movie that involves just ten conversations in a car shot from two fixed cameras showing a woman driving around the city and simply talking to the people to whom she gives lifts.

  The beginning fifteen minutes of the film features a discussion between the movie's main character, a divorced young mother, played by Mania Akbari, arguing with her real-life son Amin. Their conversation soon becomes heated as she drives him to a swimming pool as she attempts to explain to him how humiliating it had been for her to secure a divorce. It's both…

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  Review by maneleeo ★★★★ 3

  Jafar Panahi's "Taxi" must have taken a lot of inspiration from this. Ten conversations and we never leave the car, and somehow it's a recipe for a film that never loses steam and makes its audience beg for more. Is it because it is so simple? Is it the brilliant acting? I swear I was simply eavesdropping on real life conversations, the kid and his mother had moments that reminded of my own relationship with my mother (minus the constant stress between them).

  It's Kiarostami toning it down and still bringing the volume up. Like a tennis match, we look right, left, right, oh a left again, and we just want to keep on listening. People are speaking things that we really want to hear and know more.

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  Review by elizabeth 🌈 4

  Master Abbas Kiarostami once again stretching the absolute shit out of cinema, resurrecting ancient greek theatre by digitalizing it to ask a crucial question: In the world of foolish men, what is an independent woman supposed to do?

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  Review by mehmet ★★★ 2

  emin çocuk mocuk demicem gördüğüm yerde bıçağı takıcam sana

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  Review by Emily Housel ★★★★½ 1

  I almost started crying during number 2 this was fantastic. I'm so glad that I've started to watch more Kiarostami I'm loving them so much