The camera likes to linger on the subjects of this warm, melancholy drama from Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami: a young call girl named Akiko, her fiancé, and an elderly scholar she’s sent to see one night. The film patiently observes the conversations and silences that arise between them, and, poignantly, the assumptions that they make so willfully about one another. The plot is so light that to discuss any of it would be to reveal most of it, but the unfolding of character—overheard in side conversations, deliberated on during taxicab detours around the block, or glanced at in reflections—steadily brings the emotional weight of the film into focus for the viewer. The film is set in Tokyo and features a small, all-Japanese cast who are more than capable of conveying the subtleties the script demands. The glowing color palette, coupled with an ambient murmur of soft music (or traffic, or footsteps, or even the sounds of a mechanic’s garage, all imbued with muted, lilting rhythms), provides an inviting sensory backdrop to the performances. An excellent example of Kiarostami’s quiet, minimalist style. recommended