1. By stating that spaces and places are both real and imaginedvBranford is saying that in his films, Kiarostami tries to show a realistic portrayal of people in a certain place/space while also making a commentary on the social interactions and happenings of said space/place. He furthers this also buy exploring different ways of expressing these spaces/places in physical terms.
2. The importance of repetition in Kiarostamis film is to get the viewer to grasp a sense of the area as a physical. Using the cemetery example from “The Wind Will Carry Us” we are shown Behzab making numerous trips to the cemetery. Each time he does this the visits are under a slightly different context because of what has happened in the film up to that point. Thus the site gains importance by the 4th trip because of its repetition in the film. When numerous spaces are repeated each one gains important through context of the others and thus encourages the viewer to view them as Kiarostami intended.
The visual-rhymes are images that don’t necessarily fit into the story of the film but also guide the viewers perception of the area.
3. Kiarostamis films are staged mostly outdoors because it is too difficult to avoid the censors of the female/male gaze rule. Rather than focus on the “interior life” filmmakers choose to focus on the exterior social goings-on. He also uses staging outdoors as a narrative device. By staying outside mostly he forces the viewer to make conclusions about what is going inside.
7. Though Dabashi says that Makhmalbafs early films were “religiously charged, ideologically loaded, and politically frightening” he also states that because of his upbringing and background his films had the ability to unite all those who came from circumstances like his.
8. In the second phase of Makhmalbafs career (86-88) he takes a lot of the politics out of his films and begins to focus more on the social problems that come from the politics he vehemently distresses. Instead of dwelling on the “why” he turns his eye towards “what is this causing.”