A Journey to the Edge of Existence
Abbas Kiarostami's 1997 masterpiece follows Mr. Badii, a man driving through the dusty hills of Tehran, searching for a stranger to perform a final, somber task. It is a film about the choice to live, found in the smallest of sensory details.
There are plenty of miserablist films about suicide. Why does this one have such power? It is partly because Badii never invites sympathy or compassion in any conventional way: watching Taste of Cherry I feel gripped; I feel scared, but I don't feel sad – or not exactly. And it is partly because of the implications of what he has in mind. We think of suicidal people as desperate, so desperate, that they don't care who finds their body. But Badii does not want to be discovered; he wants his body never to be found; he wants his suicide to be a secret. He wants utter self-annihilation, and the pathos and wretchedness of his self-directed conspiracy are gripping.
Abbas Kiarostami's haunting and mysterious Taste of Cherry won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997; I first watched it a couple of years after that. A drawn, careworn but handsome and elegant Iranian man called Badii, played by the Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi, drives around a stark Beckettian landscape in his Range Rover. He is looking for someone to help him take his own life. Badii never behaves in an obviously wretched or despairing manner; there are no cries or tears, and he never reveals the reason for what he intends to do.
The opening sequence is hypnotic, and unforgettably disturbing. We see Badii driving around Tehran's itinerant labour markets, looking for someone, sizing up the men he sees on street corners. They crowd round his car, puzzled, peering directly into the camera, asking if he wants men. "You want workers? Take one! Take two!" But something about these men displeases Badii and he drives on, up into the hills, where his ears prick up at the sound of a young man arguing on a payphone with his girlfriend about money. Badii starts to speak to this man, making small talk, with the slightly curt, coercive tone of a police officer.
What on earth does Badii want? Trade? Sex? He has the hunted look of someone looking for a prostitute, and this young man clearly suspects as much, telling him to be on his way or he will "smash his face in". Bizarrely, ironically, this same young man is to make a tiny cameo appearance in Badii's life at the very end of the film, a brilliantly understated moment.
Later, Badii will pick up a young soldier, doing his national service; he drives him to the shallow grave he has dug in a remote hillside, and reveals to this stunned squaddie the awful proposition. The plan is that later that night Badii will take a fatal dose of pills and lie in the grave waiting for death. The soldier merely has to come back at dawn, check that he's dead, and then bury him: just 20 shovelfuls of earth will do it. The man would then find a handsome cash payment waiting for him in the car.
I will never know what to think about the final scene of Taste of Cherry. Anticlimactic? Evasive? Yes, perhaps. But also incomparably strange, self-aware, and somehow very moving.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/apr/13/curzon-on-demand-taste-of-cherry
Abbas Kiarostami
"I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater... some films allow you to have a little nap and then you wake up and they are still there."
Abbas Kiarostami was a towering figure of the Iranian New Wave whose work permanently shifted the boundaries between fiction and reality, documentary and narrative, simplicity and profound philosophical inquiry. Jean-Luc Godard famously remarked, "Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami."
His cinema is minimalist on the surface but incredibly layered underneath—frequently utilizing non-professional actors, stationary cameras inside moving cars, and open-ended narratives that force the viewer to become an active co-creator of the story.
Defining Traits of His Cinematic Style
The Dashboard Camera & The Car: The automobile functions as a literal and metaphorical vehicle for his storytelling. In works like Taste of Cherry and Ten, the car acts as a confessional, a private safe space cutting through the public landscapes of Iran, facilitating long, unbroken, philosophical dialogues.
Meta-Narrative & Reflexivity: Kiarostami loved breaking the fourth wall—not for shock value, but to question the nature of cinematic truth. He frequently exposed the filmmaking apparatus itself within the movie, reminding the audience that they are watching a constructed reality.
Poetic Realism: Deeply influenced by Persian poetry (such as the works of Omar Khayyam and Forough Farrokhzad), his films focus on small, everyday human interactions that build toward massive existential truths regarding life, death, and human connection.
Essential Works
Close-Up (1990)
Part documentary, part re-enactment, this masterpiece tells the true story of Hossain Sabzian, a marginalized man who conned a well-to-do family by pretending to be the famous Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Kiarostami stepped in and had the actual individuals replay the events in real-time, creating a profound, empathetic examination of identity, class, and the escapism of cinema.
The Koker Trilogy
Though Kiarostami didn't originally view them as a trilogy, these three films are physically and conceptually anchored to the village of Koker before and after a devastating 1990 earthquake:
Where Is the Friend's House? (1987): A simple, urgent quest of a young boy trying to return his classmate's notebook to avoid him getting expelled.
And Life Goes On (1992): A director drives into the earthquake-struck region to find out if the two boys from the first film survived, shifting focus to human resilience.
Through the Olive Trees (1994): A meta-look at the making of a scene from And Life Goes On, focusing on a young non-professional actor trying to court his co-star between takes.
Taste of Cherry (1997)
Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the film follows Mr. Badii as he drives through the dusty hills outside Tehran looking for someone to perform a specific task: either pull him out of a hole if he survives a suicide attempt, or bury him if he succeeds. It is a quiet, masterful meditation on the fragile, beautiful reasons to choose life.
"I think a good film is one that has a life after you leave the cinema. It shouldn’t end when the credits roll; it should start germinating in your mind." — Abbas Kiarostami
The "Taste" of Life
The title refers to the small, sensory pleasures that make existence bearable. Mr. Bagheri’s monologue is the emotional core of the film; he doesn't use grand religious or philosophical arguments, but rather points to the "taste of cherries" (or mulberries, in his case), the sunrise, and the sight of children going to school as sufficient reasons to stay alive.
The Mystery of the Individual
Kiarostami famously refuses to give Badii a "backstory." We never learn why he wants to die. This lack of context forces the viewer to focus on the existential weight of the decision rather than the psychological cause. Badii tells the seminarian, "You can understand my pain, but you cannot feel it."
Landscape as Reflection
The film is dominated by the beige, barren, and dusty landscapes of the Tehran hills. The winding roads and the constant presence of construction and falling earth serve as a visual metaphor for Badii's internal state—a man caught between the earth he came from and the grave he is digging.
Why It Resonates
Existential Inquiry: It is often compared to Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, framing the question of suicide as the fundamental philosophical problem.
Defiance of Spectacle: In an era of heavy-handed cinematic storytelling, Taste of Cherry is celebrated for its restraint. It trusts the viewer to engage with the silence, the landscape, and the ambient sounds of the environment as much as the dialogue.
Cultural Context: Kiarostami’s work often navigated the complex landscape of post-revolutionary Iranian state censorship. The film operates as a "fable" that circumvents direct political or religious commentary, yet manages to comment on the universal experience of longing and existential despair in a restrictive society.
The Controversial Ending (Spoilers)
The film ends with Badii lying in his grave during a thunderstorm. The screen fades to total black for an extended period. Suddenly, the film breaks into grainy, handheld video footage of the film crew (including Kiarostami himself) and soldiers relaxing on the hillside during the production.
Interpretations of the Ending:
The "Coda" of Life: Some see it as a reminder that "life goes on" regardless of one individual's fate.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: By showing the "making of" the film, Kiarostami reminds the audience that this was just a story, perhaps providing a "release" from the oppressive tension of Badii's journey.
Spiritual Rebirth: Some critics suggest the switch from the drab film stock to the vibrant video symbolizes a transition to an afterlife or a new state of being.
Domestic Status and Censorship
Official Ban: The film was effectively blocked from widespread domestic distribution. Because the central theme—suicide—is considered a taboo and a violation of religious tenets within the Iranian theocratic system, the film was never granted the necessary permits for a full theatrical release in Iran.
State Ambivalence: While the Iranian government prohibited its citizens from seeing the film, it simultaneously leveraged its international success for political capital. The Palme d’Or—the highest honor at Cannes—was treated as a national achievement. According to accounts, the award itself was kept in a government building, displayed like a state-sanctioned trophy, even though the work that earned it remained censored at home.
The "Underground" Status: The film’s restricted status inadvertently cemented Kiarostami’s reputation as an "underground" filmmaker within his own country. By denying him broad screening permissions and failing to provide state subsidies or support, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance created a distance between the director and his local audience.
Critical and Press Reception
Backlash from the Iranian Press: Following his win at Cannes, Kiarostami faced harsh criticism from segments of the Iranian press. He noted in later interviews that the "shameful treatment" he received from local journalists after the 1997 award ceremony left him disillusioned, leading him to avoid giving interviews to Iranian publications for a decade.
The Director’s View: Kiarostami often expressed that he felt the post-revolutionary cultural institutions neither understood nor supported his artistic vision. He maintained that these institutions were fundamentally hostile to cinema as an art form, preferring works that adhered to rigid ideological frameworks.
.jpg)
