Close-Up: Unmasking the struggles of the working class

'Close-Up' (1990), directed by Abbas Kiarostami–a pioneering film in the Iranian movie industry–is based on a true story about Hossein Sabzian, who impersonated the famous director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to a middle-class family. 

On the surface, it is an interesting comedic story about a family being fooled by someone. But is that all? Or is there a hidden, deeper message about society and why this incident happened?

Hossein Sabzian spends time with the Ahankhah family, but as they later discover the truth of his identity, Hossein is arrested and put on trial. 

The impostor then shares his side of the story in court.

Kiarostami titled the movie 'Close-Up' because he wanted to show society's real problems up close and in detail, so people could see their struggles, hardships, and daily realities. He focused on the lives of ordinary, poor, and marginalised people, as they are the people who have little to no representation in the media.

Hossein Sabzian is a poor man who once worked in the printing industry but lost his job. He pretends to be a director because poverty held him back from pursuing his dreams of being a filmmaker. He admits that by the law's definition, he is a criminal; however, he never had bad intentions–posing a question of morality to the audience. He only engaged with the Ahankhah family because of their interest in cinema and art.

Sabzian chose to impersonate Mohsen Makhmalbaf as his films often explore poverty and marginalised people. These people live without hope, while the rich keep making more money and ignore the struggles of the poor. 

Sabzian explained that the working class respects those who speak for them, and Makhmalbaf always spoke for such people through his cinema. Sabzian also mentioned that Makhmalbaf's 'The Cyclist' resembles his own life, a vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation, just like in the film.

Hossein Sabzian's story is a shadow of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's tale 'The Cat' (Biral) that steals milk not out of greed but out of hunger. When caught, the cat tells Kamalakanto that if rich people cared for the poor, there would be no crime. The real cause behind the cat's hunger was the rich, who kept more than they needed but gave nothing to the poor. Likewise, the bourgeoisie accumulate wealth far beyond their needs but neglect those who suffer.

Similarly, after the incident, both Sabzian and the cat defended their actions intellectually, because people like them, the proletariat, have no voice. 

Every society has its own Hossein Sabzian–people who commit petty crimes not out of evil intention, but because they need to survive. In the trial, Sabzian was asked how many days he planned to continue his act. He replied, "As long as it caused no trouble for the Ahankhah family." 

This shows he was not a real criminal; he was simply trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. He could not support his family, could not buy anything for his children, and his marriage ended in divorce because of poverty. Many days, he was hungry, and that hunger pushed him into this act, not greed. 

When his deception was discovered, he chose not to run away because, morally, he believed he was not wrong. He had borrowed 1,900 toman from the Ahankhah family, but he intended to repay it.

The whole film shows what seems like an unusual, almost strange story from society. However, Kiarostami's main message was about unemployment and the struggles of the proletariat. 

It is a commentary on how harmful unemployment is, as it can push people into committing crimes. For this poverty and joblessness, both the government and the rich are responsible. 

Kiarostami also shows this reality in several scenes: both sons of the Ahankhah family have engineering degrees, yet one works in a bakery and the other is still unemployed. Mehrdad Ahankhah's friends are also jobless. Some people had jobs but lost them due to factory closures, showing how the government had a hand to play in unemployment rates. 

This is the reality–if the upper class and government turn a blind eye to society, then the working class are forced to make ends meet, at any cost. 

Abbas Kiarostami cast real people from the incident in the film so that audiences could truly understand the struggles, pain, and exploitation faced by the proletariat. Sabzian himself told Kiarostami he wanted a movie about his life so that people could see the reality of his suffering. After all, the life of a poor person often contains far more hardship than any fictional story in cinema.

Kiarostami titled the movie 'Close-Up' because he wanted to show society's real problems up close and in detail, so people could see their struggles, hardships, and daily realities. He focused on the lives of ordinary, poor, and marginalised people, as they are the people who have little to no representation in the media.