The kid with a camera : Abbas Kiarostami's cinematic critique.

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the film works of Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami. It argues that his films constitute a body of work that serves as a self-reflexive critique of cinema. Through both documentary and fiction film-making, Kiarostami complicates the clear divide between reality and fiction in film-making by blending both realities and fictions into his film. Through the use of ambiguity, Kiarostami complicates the authorial claim of a writer/director claims, implicating the audience in the generation of meaning. Several of his films also explore the apparatus of the camera and the act of film-making. In these films he demonstrates how the camera is not a passive, objective observer, but an active tool that shapes and reforms the reality it captures.