Hyper-realism in Like Someone in Love

Abbas Kiarostami's 2012 film Like Someone in Love is a further step in his unusual, international career - compare with his early Taste of Cherry set in native Iran and more recent Certified Copy set in France - and in all three cases serious, literary plot, focus on two central characters, long scenes played out in real time - like Rohmer but a step further - little character background, unexplained mysteries about the central relationships, and abrupt endings that don't quite resolve all of the conflicts. I have to say I admired Like Someone more than I actually liked it; K. becomes I think one of the few Western directors to set a movie in Japan, in Japanese, with an all-Japanese cast. This story focuses on a young woman, college student, moonlight as a high-priced call girl (why a woman with her youth, beauty, and charm would do so is completely unexplained and unexamined - she doesn't appear to have a drug problem or any other issue that would drive her to such behavior). In first scene her pimp gives her an assignment with a man whom he says he really respects; she tries to get out of the deal, but relents - blowing off a visit from her grandmother who came to Tokyo unannounced to see her - we hear many poignant voice messages from this elderly woman, and the girl, Akiko, takes a cab to the train station where she sees her grandmother waiting and she keeps going - obviously shamed. The man who's hired her turns out to be an elderly professor; their relationship, at least that night, is chaste - he takes her to her college where she is to finish an exam and there he's confronted by her "finance" who believes him to be her grandfather, and he asks for advice and for his blessing, and of course complications ensue. On the one hand, I do admire K's films and others that develop their story lines slowly, lovingly, and carefully - and he's among the best at use of real time: when we talk with someone for say 10 minutes it seems like nothing but when characters in a movie engage in one scene of dialog for 10 minutes it seems eternal - and K uses this dichotomy very well for effect, the scenes seem realistic but also, within the faster paced grammar of cinema, they feel strange and artificial, hyper-realistic. Sometimes, as a result, my patience waned and I just wanted the story to move along - and as it builds toward its conclusion it ends with a burst of energy and violence, which K keeps at the periphery of his film - though others would have used this as their central conflict, or even their opening scene. He has a style all his own, or mostly his own - one that's not for all viewers but a accomplishment in and of itself.