Taste of Cherry

A middle-aged and middle class man drives through the streets of Tehran, searching for someone who might assist him. He turns away the eager men who crowd his window, in hopes of being hired for day labor. It's not clear what he wants, and not clear he knows exactly what he's looking for, and when he finally picks up a young man in a military uniform, the young man's growing apprehension mirrors our own. What kind of job demands such secrecy? Of course, if you've read the back of the dvd case, you know what he wants is for someone to assist him with suicide. More precisely, he wants someone to come and bury him when the job has been done. A paradox of the film is that in order to die alone, to leave behind no trace, this man requires an assistant. He cannot end his life alone. What is intriguing about the opening scene is that it sets up the uneasy soldier as a kind of surrogate for the audience, who will witness and assess this man's decision to end his life. It raises questions for us, not only about the significance of life and what considerations might lead one to end it, but also about what it means to be a witness, what it means to observe a man's life, questions that will be intensified as the story progresses.The film is deceptively simple, following the man as he attempts to convince someone, but not just anyone, to perform this final act, to cover him with dirt when he is gone. It turns out, upon reflection, to have been structured with a great deal of precision, with two major parts divided by a transition during which the man stops to observe the workings of a nearby gravel site. The digging of the earth, the anonymous machines hauling gravel and soil, all serve as subtle reminders of the burial contemplated by the man. There is a powerful moment, as the man looks over the edge of a pit where dirt falls, and it seems as though his shadow is shrouded by the soil and silt. He sits as the mounting dust obscures him from view, and a man comes and calls to him, in a manner that anticipates what he asks his prospective helpers to do, to call his name and be sure he is dead before burying him. The three men he solicits as assistants are at different stages in their lives, and may suggest different generations and walks of life in Iran - they also seem to represent three very different perspectives on the theme of the film, on the question whether and why life should be lived at all costs: the perspective of the youth and of the military establishment, where law is decisive; the perspective of religion from a cleric in training, where morality and faith are called upon, and judgment is passed; and the perspective of a wise and aging taxidermist, who does not judge but only asks that the man stop and consider whether there is anything he values and could live for. In his case, when he had himself contemplated his own end, it had been "the taste of cherries" that awakened him to feel and care again.The final scene is both enigmatic and rich, and recalls Kiarostami's deliberate tendency in films such as  Close-Up  to withdraw from key moments and allow viewers to fill in the gaps, allowing the enigma to intensify the imaginative response. The exuberant and upbeat ending, in contrast with the style and feel of the film to that point, also points back to the beginning, opening space for reflection on the cinematic techniques and themes of the film as a whole, and manages to introduce new concerns such as the nature of cinema, of realism and fiction. I have seen this film many times and see more each time. Rather than make it seem more complicated, it gets simpler, more direct, with each new insight. This is one of the great works of cinema, by one of the most intriguing of living filmmakers. Highly recommended.

It happened that I had already seen Ten, made by Kiarostami in 2002, and I was struck by the resemblance of approach in the two movies. As I was now watching Taste of Cherry, dialogues from Ten were coming to my mind. In both movies a driver is running the car through the streets of Tehran (or on shabby routes around Tehran) and approaches various people. The reactions of those people are similar in both movies. It is like the driver is the only character played by a professional, all others are just common people who seem totally unaware that they are filmed.There is a subject here in Taste of Cherry (I would rather not deconspire it, to not frustrate you of the pleasure of discovery), only I believe the subject is more like a pretext, for studying the reactions of those common people.I believe that Kiarostami is actually interested in the reaction of common people confronted with the convention of the movie. There is a subject, yes: it is a convention proposed by the creator of the movie, like any filmic subject. It is not the reality, it is a convention, that presents itself as reality. However, it is a convention, not reality. How are common people reacting to this convention? Are they considering it as normal, as belonging to their universe?Or, can these common people become part of the artistic universe? They belong to our, real, world. The main character (the driver) provokes them. They can enter the illusory world of the movie; they can refuse the illusion.Anyway, either they accept the convention, or they refuse, it is a moment of contact between two worlds: the real world, the illusory world of the movie (pretending to be the real world itself). What is the relation between the two worlds? What is the relation between object and image? A question that has tortured so many artists in the twentieth century, and I believe this is also the question that Kiarostami is trying to find the answer.The ending of the movie can be read in various ways. I believe that the sense of it is, hey, guys, a movie is just a movie, it is convention claiming to be reality, but it remains convention.I know, of course, that I could be wrong :) I also believe that Ten developed Taste of Cherry in a more radical way.

The action in this movie is INTENSE. An Iranian dude drives around looking for somebody to bury his body. That's it! It's awesome.

Kiarostami's obliquely moral tale about a seemingly average man who, for some unknown reason, wishes to end his life- plays out a huge taboo in Muslim society. Using a unique mix of long exterior shots showing Badii's car snaking through the hills, trolling for a passenger who will assist him, and more intimate point-of-view shots from within the vehicle, Kiarostami's film subtly coaxes us to consider the divide between inner life and the outer world of societal constraints. "Cherry" is also a strong meditation on the meaning of life, enhanced by the appearance of a Turkish taxidermist (Bagheri) who, fighting his own self-interest, challenges Badii to reconsider. An enigmatic yet cumulatively powerful film from Iran's preeminent director.

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami is taking you for a ride around Teheran through his hero in the movie Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi).Silence misery povetry and the mixture of different cultures give you the sense that something is going to die in this place and reborn from the ashes. Amazing photography travells you to Iranian landscape taking its time exactly like the oriental mentality. The people dont talk very much or they dont talk at all.What you want to know it is written on their faces on their clothes and the enviroment.Dont look for western type of action dont even look for a story everything you see is symbolic.Just concetrate on what you see and believe me if you never experienced before the taste of cherry you will now and you will never forget it.

One of my favourite Farsi films ever

I,thought this was okay.

wonderful

An elegant narrative. A man tries to find someone to help him with his planned suicide. As much as it is about exploring existential questions, it is about the interactions he has with the people he meets on his journey. The details, naturalistic texture, unexpected reactions, and moments of humour stand out. The 40min making off extra feature is a pleasure to watch.

This is a hard watch. It is hard because the issue with which it deals takes the viewer's heart and clamps it to the hopeless. There is no reprieve throughout. And it has that quality of the short story in that there is no resolution. In another sense, it is hard because it is mundane. A car driver. Dusty roads. Requests for assistance. It is desperately dull in a way that the issue with which it deals would seem that it should not be. Both these 'hard-watch' points are a reflection of its quality. There is anguish and tension, but I was left feeling extremely unsatisfied with the way the issue was portrayed.

Finally Criterion released this year 2020 a US & UK version of this Kiarostami masterpiece. The artwork is amazingly beautiful too. Now let's hope The Wind Will Carry Us will get a blu ray release too.

Compré en Amazón México y como está descrito, no contiene subtítulos en español, únicamente en inglés.La versión está remasterizada en 4K y es una verdadera belleza verla acompañada de todo el material extra. Vale totalmente tener esta edición de Criterion Collection.

What a beautiful film! To me, it was not just about the theme (or the pace, which has cinematic purpose). The film will also appeal to people who like art - it reminded me of Tarkovsky in this respect (especially like his `Mirror'). One of the memorable scenes in Taste of Cherry is where the protagonist watches a sunset, where instead of the scene gradually fading and the sun disappearing, the scene fades,but the sun stays like a fiery orange dot in a black background....a foreboding of events to come. Also memorable is the last scene where the man lies in the pit to await death on a night with thunderstorms, and his face is sporadically illuminated by lightning.People who are looking for `messages' will not like this film - it has to be watched as one would watch a piece of art or an art installation,without preconceived notions of how films should be.Kiarostami is brilliant at filming scenes inside cars and all the actors are very good.Funny - if you go by the subtitles in the DVD, the film title should be `Taste of Mulberry'.