The second movie of Kiarostami, made in 1972. It calls in my mind some of the very first movies of Brakhage, especially The Way to Shadow Garden. In both cases, a minimalistic gem, nothing explained, a personage without history, without motivation, with the unique role of putting in value a disconcerting universe. Is it the admirable end of Breaktime a negative stasis (like in the movie of Brakhage)? Well, it is somehow a way to the Gardens of Shadow, too, though I think it is, much more, something else: it is an end refusing to be the end (as the movie actually has no beginning, also). This fourteen minutes movie dares to eliminate the story from its structure! It is a shame that Breaktime passed unobserved, because it was marking a new age in the history of cinema.
