Towards A New Political Image

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article tries to address two main arguments suggesting that Kiarostami’s cinema is politically neutral and affirming of the dominant ideology. Referring to Deleuze’s notion of ‘minor cinema’, this article argues how politics is represented in Kiarostami’s cinema giving a close analysis of Nama-ye Nazdik (Close-Up, 1990). Deleuze in the discussion of minor cinema differentiates the modern approach to political cinema from classical cinema by analysing the relationship between the political and the private and the representation of people. In Nama-ye Nazdik, by revealing the hidden story of unemployment of a poor printer and the middle-class family’s sons, Kiarostami blurred the boundary between the private and the political. In addition, by portraying several people in the film they are simultaneously unified and clashed with each other. Therefore, the film testifies to a split in the unity of people, and ‘people’ in this film represent a new political meaning.