Source: Wikipedia
Capturing the miracles and mysteries of everyday life in all his films, Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami will always be one of cinema’s greatest poets. His Palme d’Or-winning Taste of Cherry is a spiritual road movie of tremendous humility: a meditation on mortality with an unforgettable coda.
Introduction
Movie Name: Taste of Cherry
Director’s Name: Abbas Kiarostami
Genre: Drama
Language: Farsi
Synopsis
The movie opens with a middle-aged man, Mr Badii, driving around the scrappy city of Tehran in his car. He appears to be looking for someone through the crowd of labourers. He tries to talk to people but at first, they refuse and run away.
The first person who responds is a Kurdish soldier to whom Badii offers a ride. They start talking about his turbulent life back home in Kurdistan, his life as a soldier, and other such things to get to know each other a little bit. Then Badii reveals the real reason he’s looking for someone. He offers the young soldier a job that will pay him handsomely even though the job itself is morally questionable. Mr Badii is looking for someone to bury him after he kills himself. Upon hearing this, the soldier is scared out of his wits and runs away the first chance he gets.
Mr Badii continues his search. The next potentially helpful person he meets is an Afghan seminarist who engages in an insightful discussion about suicide with Mr Badii. They talk about how religion prohibits self-killing and considers it a sin. This is the first time we get a chance to hear Mr Badii’s perspective. He, visibly in pain, explains that words are insufficient to convey to others what he feels. He says “You can’t feel what I feel’. One can empathize and be kind and compassionate all they want but one can never truly feel someone else’s pain. The seminarist ends up declining the job because it goes against what he has been taught.
At last, Mr Badii comes across an Azeri taxidermist. He accepts the job as he is in desperate need of money for his sick child. But still, he tries to talk Badii out of it by telling his own personal attempt to commit suicide. He says he was saved by some mulberries. He then continues to talk about how beautiful nature is; how sunrises and sunsets and a taste of cherry make life worth living. But he fails to convince a determined Mr Badii.
That night, Badii swallows some sleeping pills and lies in his grave amidst thunderstorms awaiting death. The film ends with a long blackout.
The coda of the film contains behind-the-scenes footage of the cast and crew shooting the film and enjoying life.
About the Director
Kiarostami had worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director, and producer and had designed credit titles and publicity material. He was also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.Kiarostami had a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary-style narrative films, for stories that take place in rural villages, and for conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works.
Self AnalysisTaste of Cherry is a long, quiet meditation on mortality and suicide. I say long and quiet because that is the kind of atmosphere the scenes created. Consistent with Kiarostami’s style the scenes of the film are very long with minimum cuts creating a sort of feeling that you are there with the characters without the barrier of the screen. There is also minimal but powerful and poetic dialogue ( which is even conveyed through the translation) allowing you to mull over what is happening and giving you enough time to form your own opinion
The acting is what particularly touched me. Houmayoun Ershadi translates the pain his character faces brilliantly with the stern look of someone who has his guards up but somehow is still vulnerable.Still Cuts
Conclusion
The charm of the film for me was the unusual perspective the film had on the topic of suicide. In a society that does not even want to talk about suicide, the film does much to help us understand those who are in the frame of mind to engage in such an act.
My Rating for the film is 4 on 5
You can watch it on Amazon Prime Video, Mubi.com
Written by- Anika Sharma
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