Taste of Cherry

1997 "The end of the road."
7.7| 1h39m| en
Details

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

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CiBy 2000

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Also starring Abdolrahman Bagheri

Also starring Safar Ali Moradi

Reviews

Executscan Expected more
Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
arsovskialek An unusual movie that encourage us to think. The film begins quite normally, through long scenes, where the director introduce the place where the film takes place and mystically represents us with the main character, as a man who asks another person to complete only one thing for him. (favor)As for the elements, they are almost repeated several times in the film, except for long general staff filled with speaking and after some time, some small action, except that we do not notice anything more significant in terms of the technical realization of the film. When I analyze this technique of recording, I can say that with that style of recording, that is, with these still and long frames, the inner state of the main character is emphasized, which we do not know very well, but we know that he wants to commit suicide. So with this element of calm and long frames, we notice that in fact the main character is with a solid character, good nerves and is resolute in fulfilling his purpose.Through the talks with his traveling companions, we learn a lot about him, his happiest time spent in the army, and the fact that there he met best friends for the rest of his life there.Through the last conversation he leads with his companion, Mr. Bagheri, in the film is added another element the taste of Cherries. This Sir. also tells him about the moment when he wanted to kill himself, but he was changed by the taste of mulberry, so he suggest to change his mind, and suggests cherries.
zhuber13 After reading about Iranian culture and cinema I have to admit I was intrigued and pretty excited to see Taste of Cherry. However to be perfectly honest I found this film incredibly boring and tough to sit through, mainly because of the cinematic strategy used throughout. The film implements a lot of long static takes, most of which are in the same location, which elongates the time and space of this film to give it what I would describe as a real life pace. That combined with very little to no extreme time jumps makes it feel like we are simply watching a complete day of this man's life, which in terms of making this film feel real helps a lot, but making it entertaining, however, hinders it quite a bit. It seems obvious to me that the director, Abbas Kiarostami, wanted to draw importance to his messages by making the situation they're framed in as real feeling as possible, but when you sacrifice entertainment value to do so it's my belief that you're only preventing your message from getting across to the audience.The film has a pretty ambiguous ending; we as an audience are left to wonder whether or not Mr. Badii really killed himself followed by behind the scenes footage of Kiarostami and his crew making the movie. While it's my belief that he did kill himself, I can honestly say that at the end of the movie I couldn't have cared less either way. Kiarostami does little to nothing in terms of characterization to get us to sympathize with Mr. Badii, and the fact that we as an audience aren't made out to root for Mr. Badii as a character is what fuels my belief that he did indeed kill himself. It also keeps the audience from wanting to engage in any discussion over the material, which I'm sure is not what Kiarostami intended on. I assume the behind the scenes at the end was some sort of reminder from Kiarostami that we are indeed watching a movie (maybe as some sort of disclaimer?). However I agree with Roger Ebert in his review of the film when he said, and I'm paraphrasing, something along the lines of "we don't need to be reminded at the end that this is a movie because the slow and boring pace throughout is reminder enough." At the end of the day I understand what Kiarostami was going for and applaud him for trying to make his film feel as real as possible, but it's the lack of entertainment value that kept me from truly enjoying it, and after all we are in the entertainment industry.
Rob Starzec 3 drastically different stories unfold from the same scenario, kind of like Rashomon. It takes until towards the conclusion of 1st "story" for us to know what Mr. Badii's intent is, and when we find out he wants help from somebody to bury him the dialogue becomes very deep and thoughtful.There are plenty of good lines in this film, such as "you cannot use the spade, but you can use the gun," questioning the difference between two methods of going about killing somebody. There is definitely more of a cowardice behind the use of a gun, and the soldier embodies this by fleeing the car before answering if he will help Mr. Badii.The film has a brilliant structure, making it seem like three stages of life. We have the young soldier, representing that we fear death in youth. Then we have a slightly older man who has a religious background who explains the problem with suicide. This represents an awareness of death, but the man trying to convince Badii that suicide is a sin shows not necessarily coming to terms with death just yet.The final conversation is the longest, and it revolves around an older taxidermist. Not only is he closer to death than Badii, he is familiar with death since he is a taxidermist. He is also extremely wise and has a lot to say about why Badii should reconsider, but he also accepts the job, showing an acceptance of death. It is also important to note that the film takes place over one long day, and with night coming at the end of this day it represents the ending of life in a sense.This is a really brilliant movie with such a strange ending that I still do not quite understand. I would have liked if the film had ended when they day ended rather than the ending that reflects on filmmaking. In my opinion, this is a near-perfect film.
edantheman Mr Badii wants to kill himself. The problem is he doesn't have anyone to bury him. After a few unsuccessful encounters with men who misconstrue his unspoken proposition, he picks up a young Kurdish soldier in need of a lift. Having offered the young recruit a generous sum in return for the work, the boy leaps out of the car and flees across the hillside where Badii has already dug his grave. His second prospective candidate is an Afghan seminarian, who objects on religious grounds, quoting from scripture to dissuade him. The third is an Azeri taxidermist who accepts the offer as he needs the money for his sick child, but nonetheless tries to deter him from carrying out his plan. He confesses that he too once planned to hang himself from a mulberry tree, but upon tasting the mulberries, chose life. As darkness falls over the city, Badii climbs into his grave and closes his eyes, and darkness falls upon us as the clouds open up.Abbas Kiarostami's minimalist meditation on the circle of life is notable for its use of long shots, such as in the closing sequences. The film is punctuated throughout by shots of Badii's car traversing the winding hilly roads, usually while he is conversing with a passenger. The visual distancing stands in contrast to the sound of the dialogue, which always remains in the foreground as though non-diegetic. This fusion of distance with proximity, like the frequent framing of landscapes through car windows, generates suspense in the most mundane of moments.'Taste of Cherry' confounded Western audiences accustomed to dramatic performances and emotional manipulation, with its apparent absence of explanation or conclusion. It is never explained why Badii wants to commit suicide but he tells the seminarian that Allah wouldn't want any of his children to suffer so much. We never see him take his pills but when the rains fall on his open grave we are encouraged to believe that he has 'tasted the cherries' and re-evaluated life. In his circuitous search for meaning, it could be said that the soldier represents the state; the seminarian, religion; and Azeri, what can happen but also what has gone before. Badii is in turn ignored; told to continue living but not given any reason to; and finally, told to experience nature and appreciate the little things. The theocracy has little to offer him.The Iran depicted herein is a melting pot, or cultural mosaic, of other Muslim world countries. We assume Badii is ethnically Persian, but his fellow travellers all hail from foreign lands. Perhaps this signifies the finity of the revolutionary state, in that no one has a vested stake in it's perpetuation. All three nations represented were embroiled in conflict at this time, and maybe it was three foreign perspectives who had known conflict which Badii needed. Much has been said of the very final scene which I neglected to mention above as I do not myself consider it part of the narrative. It consists of camcorder footage of the director and crew shooting scenes of the Army on patrol and would seem to me to be a disclaimer for the Iranian censors who I imagine would be concerned with the film's themes (it's only a movie). And it's inclusion in the Western release would seem to highlight this issue for foreign audiences.