A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text -- long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East -- remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show (IMDb)
As much as knew the content of the film in advance, I thought I may get bored watching countless close-up of faces, tears and feelings. The whole story of Khosrow and Shirin is told in subtitle along with music, sound of horses and sword fights, dialogues in Persian without any images. Thus, you understand and follow the story as you witness emotion to associate an imaginative journey of a foreign tale of love, betrayal and death.
Sometimes you see a same person a couple of times, but most of the times you see them for the first time striking intimate gesture while they gaze, look away, wiping tears and contemplating on the dynamic story. Sometimes the emotion seem self-conscious and sometimes they are really affected, moved and shocked by the sound of sword cutting the flesh.
It was a film that ends with epilogue with film credit and the audience sat through it to the end. As it happens when you watch a great film, people just stayed in their seats recalling, understanding or registering what they just saw. As I recall experiencing the film, "Shirin," I can hardly explain the whole dynamism of it. It is a film that demands viewing and the experiences can be interpreted in infinite possibilities.
