PARIS 26 Sept. (IPS) "Ten", the last film made by Mr. Abbas Kiarostami, considered as one of the world’s most "humanists" film directors, hit French screens last week. It consists of ten consecutive emotional sequences of a female driver, -- the movie’s central personage --, who, while drives her car in the streets of Tehran, give lift to different people, each of them in search of something.

The Film:

In the last sequence, with which the film starts, the driver accompanies her young boy to the public pool. The boy is not happy with her mother, who has separated from his father for another man. The mother and the boy are engaged in a bitter argumentation. The dialogue ends in futility, like the life itself;

Sequence 9: The driver’s sister is in the car. On the road to buy pastries for a birthday party, they talk about the boy’s education, without reaching any conclusion;

Sequence 8: An old woman climb up the car to go prey on the tomb of a local saint, telling the driver how she spends all her wealth and belonging for the sake of religion;

In sequence 7, a prostitute is with the driver, on a moonless night. She laugh at being faithful to husband and love for the family etc., and defends her own life and selling sex;

Sequence 6 shows a young girl, in order to penetrate her fiancé’s thoughts about her, wants help from divine powers;

In sequence 5, we see again the boy, but more aggressive than before with his mother;

Sequence 4 is about a friend of the driver who, with tears in her eyes, relates how her husband has left her for another woman after 7 years of marriage;

In sequence 3, we see again the young boy, this time criticising her mother for not knowing how to cook properly;

Sequence 2: The girl of sequence 6 is on her way back from the saint’s tomb, but her hair is shaved, having learned that her fiancé is to marry another girl;

Finally, on sequence One, the female driver gets the boy form his father, who has parked his car on the other side of the road and we don’t see his visage.

The Director avoids showing the faces of two of the six women, the old one and the prostitute, symbols of dedication and sex, but probably also because the two represents a certain degree of intimacy. But other dialogues take place in the framework set by Mr. Kiarostami and run without script, dealing with the women’s both emotional and private life.

Maybe the most important message from "Ten" is that each of the five women who replaces each other near the driver are part of this later one who, each time, gets one of them out of her interior in order to give them life and talk to them.

Iran Press Service (IPS) – Mr. Kiarostami, could it be said that with your last movie, "Ten", from more complicated set up, you go back to simplification in movie-making, as we saw in "Close Up", and rural landscapes instead of urban scenes?

Abbas Kiarostami (AK) – If you mean a return to urban social fabric from the view of subject instead of form, the answer is yes. But I’ve to add that both city and village are in me, sometimes I tackle rural scenes subjects, at others, questions inclusive of the cities.

Coming to the question of why this peculiar subject, one must understand all the things that separates my last film (ABC, Africa) and "Ten" as well as all the things that encouraged me, as Director, to make this film with this infrastructures.

AK – No, for the simple reason that I’d the scenario at hand before looking for the form. At the beginning of making "Ten", I was not thinking to leave the cameras fixed. But once I decided to change the camera from one place to another, I realised that they were better where they were and therefore did not touched them until the end of filming.

IPS – By reducing the role of the director in "Ten" don’t you want to imply that in any corner in Iran there are stories ready to be filmed?

AK – It is very nice the way you put it. But I did not start from this point, but based on my past experiences. When we simplify the process, the play, the staging etc., we realise that we get a better result. Director’s interferences sometimes are more destructive than constructive. As you pointed out, there are in Iran thousands of stories that happen without director, but we are the one to record them, anyhow.

IPS – Very good, but would you explain what makes that when seeing "Ten", one has not the impression of viewing a documentary, or is watching the television, but a real fiction film?

In my view, any story, any event that is reconstructed in front of camera is a fiction. But there are also films where the camera is hidden, and could be categorised as documentaries.

IPS – Milan Kundera, you recall, in one of his books, quotes his father who, reacting to any happening, says: "strange, strange!" Ten, you add, is Kiarostami’s reaction to events. Can we say that those words are "cultural problem" and "strange evolution?"

AK – Whatever I wanted to say, it is in the film and could not be explained in one or two words. Maybe I mean two lenses instead of two words. Kundera’s father, by simplifying events surrounding him and saying "strange, strange", did not judge them.

Same with me in "Ten", where as Director, I have limited myself to using two lenses only and by the same token, invite the viewer to see and judge with the same amount of lenses. In other words, when we look at people with one lens and from one angle, we also limit the persuasion power of the director who, otherwise, is to get help from staging and lighting processes.

IPS – In parts of "Ten" we have the impression you consider as private and personal the relationship between mankind and religion, like in the sequence where a young girl seek help from the sky, or divinity, to a personal, emotional matter, which is her relation with her fiancé. How important in your view is this relationship between man and divinity?

AK – You have understood the problem and want to hear it from me? Anyway, yes, relationship between humans and religion are very personal and it is a tragedy to see it exteriorised officially. I’m convinced that each man, particularly Iranians, have this relation hidden deep in them.