The definition of "sublime" goes through a subtle overhaul in Abbas Kiarostami's latest "Like Someone in Love," filmed in Tokyo and featuring an all-Japanese cast. To witness the movie is to experience a massive who-would-have-thought-moment. This is Kiarostami we're talking about: one of the world's most revered and lauded directors, an iconic figure in Middle Eastern cinema and a hero in his native Iran — this man actually made a movie here. Let's just pass the champagne bottle and be done with it.
"Like Someone in Love" is the 72-year-old director's second feature made outside Iran, following the Tuscany-based "Certified Copy" in 2010. As with the last outing, Kiarostami worked almost exclusively with local staff, including cinematographer Katsumi Yanagijima, who regularly teams up with Takeshi Kitano. And after holding a public audition in Tokyo for the role of the main protagonist (a retired 84-year-old professor), Kiarostami gently placed in the center of the story Tadashi Okuno, who says in the production notes that he had been told nothing about the renowned Iranian director. Okuno never received a screenplay, but each day Kiarostami would hand him a series of notes about what to work on for each scene. And each day, the notes were different.
"Like Someone in Love" plays out like a haiku — there seems to be no beginning or end, and each scene offers a multitude of possibilities about how it is unfolding. The film is also a series of observations, sometimes on the formalities of Japanese culture, and others times on a more universal scale about human relationships.