--- title: "Close-Up: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/close-up/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/close-up" critics_score: 89 critics_reviews: 9 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Close-Up (1990): what the critics said Critics' score 89 from 9 reviews: 9 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. ## Slant Magazine — Ed Gonzalez Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 3 February 2002. Kiarostami recognizes the significance of Sabzian's impersonation as an affront to realism rooted in genuine passion for art and cinema as emancipator. The film is the definitive commentary on film itself, with its genius lying in making the spectator share that passion through intimate camerawork and the authenticity of closeness. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/close-up/) ## The AV Club — Noel Murray Rating A. 14 July 2010. The film blends documentary footage of a real trial with re-enactments to explore the blurred lines between pretense and truth, art and reality. Kiarostami's formal daring, including long takes that shift focus from plot to everyday moments, makes it bracing and philosophically rich. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/close-up-1798165426) ## Los Angeles Times — Dennis Lim Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 9 June 2010. The critic calls it Kiarostami’s most complete and intricate examination of illusion and cinema, the emblematic work of the Iranian New Wave. He singles out the way the film blends documentary and reenactment, with all participants playing themselves, to explore identity and the power of movies. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jun-09-la-et-second-20100609-story.html) ## The Independent Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 December 1997. The critic calls it a stunning meditation on reality, fiction and the film-maker's role. Kiarostami's generous use of non-actors in a real-life based story creates a moving, humane work that realises the protagonist's dream of cinematic recognition. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/new-films-close-up-directed-by-abbas-kiarostami-nc-1289548.html) ## The New Yorker — Richard Brody Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 4 May 2017. The capsule describes the reflexive 1990 drama about an impostor who poses as a director and Kiarostami’s re-enactment of the case with the real participants. It praises the ironic politics and the way the film’s calmly unwavering images, wry humor, and generous sympathy resist religious dogma. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/close-up) ## The New York Times — Stephen Holden Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 31 December 1999. The film is a brilliant, knotty work that seamlessly blends dramatized reconstructions with documentary footage of a real fraud case. It stands out for its radically drab cinema-verite style that blurs the line between reality and reconstruction while exploring the pathos of a man's longing to feel like somebody through impersonation. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/31/movies/film-review-the-pathos-of-deceit-by-a-victim-of-longing.html) ## Time Out — GA Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 10 September 2012. Kiarostami's masterpiece alternates trial scenes with reconstructions to interrogate fiction, documentary, truth and falsehood in a complex yet clear narrative. It is enormously intelligent, witty, poignant, engrossing and ends with a sharp deconstruction of film form. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/close-up-1) ## Sight and Sound — Geoff Andrew Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). The film blurs documentary and fiction through its fragmented narrative of a fraud trial and re-enactments. It reveals the accused as a decent man while exploring truth, reality and the director's role, driven by compassion and philosophical curiosity. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/3b863389-5735-5b97-86c2-7e52217a7517/close-up) ## The Playlist — Christopher Bell Rating A. 5 July 2016. The critic praises the film's genre-bending experiment that plays with cinematic and documentary truth through a real-life impersonation story, using actual participants and trial footage. It stands out for its sly humor, deconstructionism, and straightforward fulfillment compared to the director's other work. [Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/best-films-abbas-kiarostami-20160705/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/close-up.md