24 Frames

The late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s (1940-2016) final film, made during his terminal illness and completed by his son Ahmad after his death, is a blending of still photography and cinematic technique that was at one point envisaged as a museum installation of separate items rather than a continuous work. It consists of 24 segments running between four and five minutes, each shown from a single perspective. The first is a painting by Pieter Bruegel in which a few elements, such as smoke from a chimney or a crow on a tree branch, are animated; another shows a group of people standing immobile on a Paris bridge, observing a light show against the Eiffel Tower as a street musician strolls singing behind them. Most, however, are shots of animals—horses, dogs, birds, wolves, goats, lions, deer—as they gambol about in fields during snowfalls or on a beach as waves crash in the background. These shots are taken either from windows that frame the images or from a static position on the shore, with some accompanied by an eclectic assortment of music cues (including an aria from Madame Butterfly and music from Andrew Lloyd Webber), although most feature only ambient sounds. 24 Frames will appeal primarily to Kiarostami devotees and viewers who embrace film’s possibilities as a non-narrative art form, but anyone can appreciate the haunting effect of this collage of vignettes that—taken together—point toward the power of nature and the fragility of life. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)