Taste of Cherry

Taste of Cherry (1997) takes place almost entirely inside a car and asks a single question. Mr Badii drives through the hills outside Tehran. He makes an offer to men at the roadside: he will lie down in a pit and kill himself, and in the morning someone should come and cover him with earth, for money. He never says why. Kiarostami does not say either. He speaks with three people. A young soldier is frightened. A seminarian explains that it is a sin. An elderly taxidermist does not preach; he tells his own story, and inside that story there is a mulberry tree. The way it was shot is unusual. Kiarostami mostly did not film the two men in the car at the same time. The actors played their scenes separately and the director often drove the car himself, delivering the other half of the dialogue. What looks like a conversation is really two monologues. The last two minutes are the most argued about part. The image drops abruptly to video and we see the film being made, crew included. Some call it a cheap trick, others the only honest ending it could have. It shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1997 with The Eel. It runs 99 minutes. Good for: Iranian cinema, slow cinema, and philosophical narrative. Less good for: suicide is the central subject, there is no plot, and the repeated roadside scenes demand patience.