Abbas
Kiarostami’s 1997 film, Taste of Cherry, is an Iranian film about a middle
class and middle aged man, Mr. Badii (Homayon Ershadi) who drives around the
barren hills, looking for someone to assist him in committing suicide. As he
picks up and converses with different people about the job, including a young
solider (Safar Ali Moradi), an Afghani
seminarist (Mir Hossein Noori), and an Azeri taxidermist (Abdolrahman Bagheri)We
learn that he has already dug himself a grave in the mountains and he is
planning on taking all of his sleeping pills and laying down in the said grave,
hoping to die there. He is hoping that someone will go to the grave in the
morning and check if he is still alive or not. If so, they are to help him out
of the grave, if not, they are to fill the grave with the surrounding dirt.
The
film is minimalist in nearly all senses of the word. There is little character
development, numerous long takes of scenery and of Mr. Baddi’s car, a small
amount of dialogue, long periods of silence, and few actors involved. Due to
this languid and tedious style, the film received very mixed reviews upon its
release. Despite this, Kiarostami continues to defend his style saying, “I
don't like to engage in telling stories. I don't like to arouse the viewer
emotionally or give him advice. I don't like to belittle him or burden him with
a sense of guilt. Those are the things I don't like in the movies. I think a
good film is one that has a lasting power and you start to reconstruct it right
after you leave the theater.”
The Taste of Cherry
consists mostly of four different shots. A close up of Mr. Baddi driving, a
close up of whoever in the passenger seat, a long shot of the surrounding
landscape, and a longshot above Mr. Baddi’s car as it winds through a number of
roads. While they may seem insignificant, they can actually tell us a lot about
Mr. Baddi and his psyche. First, it is worth noting that we hardly ever see a
shot in which Mr. Baddi is with another person. In all of the conversations
that take place in his car, Kiarostami uses the shot, reverse shot technique
and ensures that each frame only contains one person. This signifies Mr.
Baddi’s emotional separation from each of the characters and his indifference
towards most of what they say. Also, the shots of Baddi driving remind us that
he is in ultimate control of his life no matter who tries to stop him from
committing suicide. The long shots of the car driving can be interpreted as a
metaphor for the many twists and turns, or ups and downs of life. Following
this logic, the sequence in which Baddi’s car get stuck in a ditch and workers
help to lift it out could represent the fact that people often get down or into
ruts and need people around them to help them up again. The many shots of
nature serve a reminder of the beauty of life and as juxtaposition between such
beauty and Baddi’s dark situation.
Kirostami also symbolizes Baddi’s separation from others by almost
always placing something between him and the audience. For example, at the
security station, we see him through a glass window, while in his house we
again see him only through a window. We also see him through a cloud of dust,
inside of a car, and even in the shadow on a piece of manual equipment all at
varying times throughout the film.
No
matter how you look at it, Taste of
Cherry is a very ambitious work from an extremely talented director.
Although Kirostami’s minimalist style has been rejected by many critics, he
executes it well through his masterful use of cinematic techniques.
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