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Following on from ABC Africa, Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami continues to explore the creative possibilities of digital video with this minimalist work, which the filmmaker himself describes as being midway between documentary and fiction.
Its protagonist is an unnamed, divorced mother (Mania Akbari) who's driving around Tehran, and the film's 10 sequences, shot entirely from the dashboard of her car, record her conversations with a succession of passengers. Those who ride shotgun include her abrasive young son (Amin Maher), her forthright sister, an elderly worshipper, a defiant prostitute and a female friend.
Featuring frank exchanges and non-professional performances that brim with vitality, 10 is a searching examination of the plight of women in a male-dominated Islamic society. It's not one of the director's best films - that would be Close Up or The Wind Will Carry Us - but it does illustrate Kiarostami's compassionate concern with "ordinary" human relationships.
