Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Talent: Tadashi Okuno, Rin Takanashi, Ryo Kase
Release Date: 21st June 2013
Set in Tokyo, Like Someone in Love is a subtle Japanese-language drama by acclaimed writer-director Abbas Kiarostami and only his second feature set and shot outside of his native Iran. Most of the action is confined within a station wagon, offering us fleeting glimpses of the beautiful urban landscape while hinting at the city’s capacity for isolation and alienation. We are invited to decipher the meaning of relationships and our roles within them through the carefully orchestrated interaction of three characters: a university student, her jealous boyfriend, and a kindly widower. A case of mistaken identity reveals the duplicitous nature of identity and our mutability. Kiarostami avoids the predictable ‘lonely john meets friendly prostitute’ spiel and instead, without imparting moral judgment, offers a patient inquiry into our need for emotional intimacy and the loneliness that results from disconnection and detachment. A sense of melancholic passivity reinforces this film’s wonderful ambiguity and allows us to decide for ourselves what love means.
