The Koker Trilogy

Directed by ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Starring BABEK AHMED POOR BUBA BAYOUR HOSSEIN REZAI

1987-94

Released 23 SEPT

Blu-ray

If the task of writing about great art is, by definition, an act of reduction, we might as well start small. Abbas Kiarostami’s first decade of cinema, long before he enjoyed international acclaim, consisted mostly of several documentaries and educational short films. functions, not so much as a harbinger of what Kiarostami would make subsequently, but a bridge that spans what came before, and after. As was often the case with Kiarostami, belies a deceptive intelligence. Playful deception, like game of peek-a-boo – free of malice. In the viewing moment, the film feels like a found object, of improvised construction, a feint at filmmaking. (Kiarostami’s affection for and allegiance to the primal, affectless cinema of the Lumière brothers is a topic for another conversation.) It’s with a moment’s retrospection that crystalline patterns begin to form. Thus a film seemingly aimed at, and about, young children, assumes a more advanced game. And it was in this wind that Kiarostami dwelled. Thematically, structurally, philosophically, methodologically, he would not be pinned down. His body of work oscillated habitually between documentary and fiction forms – often dwelling in the doorway that is supposed to divide the two.