Ten

Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami maintains a mode of maximal minimalism, and makes it work. It doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, but m-m-m -- that’s a tasty Persian dish. Just take two digital cameras mounted on the dashboard of a car, one fixed on the driver and the other on the passenger seat. Add a beautiful thirtysomething woman in a succession of fashionable headscarves as driver, and mix in a succession of passengers -- her son, sister, friend, a holy woman and a prostitute, non-actors all -- then set them in dialogue while the streets of Tehran swirl through the window in backdrop. Mix 23 hours of footage down to 90 minutes, and count down 10 episodes with interspliced film leader. Voila! The chef is most creative in standing aside, and letting his selected ingredients slowly simmer in their own juices -- most personal in removing himself from the scene. The film tastes like a documentary (and is a very timely look inside an undemonized Iran), but Kiarostami seasons it with his favorite flavors so it has the signature of his hand. And of his mind -- as uncontrolled as it is, few films are more thought out. As you will discover if you watch the feature length extra on the dvd, “10 on Ten,” in which the camera is fixed on Kiarostami himself as he drives through the landscape of A Taste of Cherry, and expounds the thinking behind the film in ten “lessons.” This may not be the best entree to Kiarostami, but if he is to your taste, you will love this offering. (2003, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-86.)