24 Frames

As contemplative as watching ocean waves eternally roll in, as soaring as listening to Ave Maria while pigeons flutter about, as mysterious as daydreaming while clouds billow past, and as somber as watching death come from nowhere to stop life in its tracks, yet knowing that nature will simply continue on. Maybe these are the images an artist nearing his own end has in mind, an homage to the beauty of life in its simple, underappreciated moments, and at the same time, a calm acceptance of death.

I loved the concept of this film, particularly in the life that Kiarostami breathed in to Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow in frame 1, but found that what followed a little too similar, and that not knowing the source of inspiration for 21 of the next 23 frames to be a detractor. It's certainly immersive and meditative, demanding patience of the viewer or a frame of mind that allows simple images to wash over oneself, but at 114 minutes, nearly 5 minutes a frame, it seemed too much for me.

The final frame, containing the kiss between Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews at the end of The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) played in very slow motion on a computer screen, while trees sway outside in the darkness, is stirring, powerful stuff. The only thing we have are these moments when we cling to one another, and if only we could slow them down. I just wish the music selected for this piece was something more poetic than Andrew Lloyd Weber's Love Never Dies, and that it hadn't taken so long to get to it.

I find it puzzling that some critics found this last work by Abbas Kiarastam, made as he knew he was approaching the end of his days, disappointingly uncinematic. 24 Frames seems to me the logical end point for the arc of the career of one of the fundamentally cinematic artists. Surely, the Kiarastami aesthetic can best be boiled down to an Ozu style static camera mounted on a car window, a still, pensive acknowledgement of a world in flux.

Or perhaps one can see this work as an inversion of that aesthetic. For here, Kiarastami uses digital animation to bring movement to still images: a painting, a post-card, and 22 of his own still photographs, trying to inject temporality back into a "frozen moment". The movement comes mostly in the form of animal life, a nature that seems very much in peril. The few contributions by human characters are generally destructive, as if the humans think they live in frozen moments, a world that cannot end. Kiarastami seems to be trying to remind the viewer of the fragility of life in this world, how quickly we may be approaching it's end, as of course, he was approaching his as he made the film.

Beautiful film and some frames are striking. It is slow and would take peserverance to sit till the end. I am surprised it'd be shown in HK cinemas which are usually quite commercial - probably because of his big name. I fell asleep from 11-16th frame, then again the last two frames. But no audience left the cinema which I find quite amusing.

I wouldn't say it's a great film. At many points I was a bit disappointed at how rough the details were made...it was like seeing a large installation work of a respectfulartost in a gallery, but noticing execution flaws here and there.

It would not have been shown in hk cinemas or received that many awards, if it were a film by a new film maker.

It's experimental but I can hardly describe it as a good film. I'd not recommend t to friends. Sorry.

Gr8 Background ! It's like living wallpaper for your TV ! 24 LIVING FRAMES ! .hence the name. And some gr8 tunes too.

Frame 13 was brutal ! True and touching !

Most people want to compare this movie to non-narrative visual art, and that's not what I saw. Really, it reminded me more of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, another collection of short stories which feels meticulously plotted yet like an illusion that vanishes when you try to make literal meaning out of it. The two are the best evocation of the era when short story collections mattered to normal people and vice versa. There are almost no humans, but the movie is full of perfectly observed character moments that are orchestrated with thematic precision. This is the Winesburg, Ohio of avant garde filmmaking, and probably a better cinematic version of that book's accomplishments in micro-observation than the adaptation.