Ten is a captivating, humorous, and understated film by Abbas Kiarostami that follows a series of (ten) conversations by a divorced middle-class woman as she engages a series of passengers in a dialogue while navigating the streets of Tehran: her precocious son who feels suffocated by his parents’ competition for his allegiance and affection; her sister who dotes on her husband; a religious older woman; a beautiful young woman who prays for a successful resolution to her stalled long-term relationship; an anonymous prostitute searching for a high traffic street in which to conduct business. Less narrative driven than Through the Olive Trees and more episodic than the encounters in A Taste of Cherry, Ten is an insightful, universal window into the everyday complexities of contemporary existence.
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