Video Review

Close-up (2002)

EW's GRADE
B

Details Release Date: Feb 19, 2002; Genre: Foreign Language; With: Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Hossein Sabzian

An ardent fan impersonates a famous Iranian director in a quasi-documentary Six Degrees of Separation that ''stars'' many of the people involved in the actual case. Because much of the film is reconstruction, questions of art and artifice (the sound cuts out — or does it? — during the film's most poignant scene, the meeting between the impostor and his idol) become a constant reminder that moviemaking both mirrors and manipulates life. B

Originally posted Feb 22, 2002 Published in issue #640-641 Feb 22, 2002 Order article reprints

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