Taste of Cherry is an Iranian Cinema released in 1997, written, produced, edited and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. The protagonist of this film, Mr. Badii played by Homayoun Ershadi, who is a middle-aged Tehran man, who drives through a city suburb in search of a suitable man capable of finishing a job for him, an odd job, to either help him get up from a hole in case if he's alive, or bury him in that grave if he’s dead for he will be attempting suicide. The film won the Palme d’Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, which it shared with The Eel. The movie follows a philosophical approach namely “minimalism”. In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-minimal art practices, which extend or reflect on minimalism's original objectives. These films typically tell a simple story with straightforward camera usage and minimal use of score. "Transcendental cinema” was one of the names given to the minimalist cinema during this movement. Now coming back to Taste of Cherry, this revolves around a guy who is in search on a person willing enough to help after the protagonist attempts suicide.
Mr. Badii, a middle-aged loner, drives through the city of Tehran, looking for someone to do a job for him, for which offers a lot of money. During his drives with probable candidates, Badii reveals that he plans to murder himself and has already dug his grave. He tells the people he is soliciting to go to the spot he has chosen the next morning, and either help him up, if he has chosen to save himself, or to bury him, if he has chosen to kill himself. Mr, Badii never discusses why he wants to commit suicide in the entire film.
His first candidate, a young, shy Kurdish soldier, who refuses to do the job and flees from Badii's car. His second recruit is an Afghan seminarist, who declines this job because he has religious objections to suicide and according to Islam, killing yourself is a sin. The third is Mr. Bagheri, an Azeri taxidermist. He is willing to help Badii because he needs that money to help his sick child. Even then, he tries to convince Badii not to commit suicide, and reveals there was a time Bagheri too wanted to kill himself in 1960 but chose to live when, after failing his attempt, he tasted mulberries which dropped from a tree, and reveals that he then went home with the mulberries, and gave it to his wife, which she enjoyed. He continues to discuss what he perceives to be the beauty of life, including sunrises and the moon and stars. Bagheri promises to throw dirt on Badii if he finds him dead in the morning. Badii drops him back at his workplace, but suddenly runs back to meet him in desperation, requesting that Bagheri must confirm if he's actually dead by throwing some stones at him and jolting him awake, in case he is asleep.
That night, Badii lies in his grave while a thunderstorm begins. After a long blackout, the film ends by breaking the fourth wall with camcorder footage of Kiarostami and the film crew filming Taste of Cherry, leaving Badii's choice unknown.
“You can’t feel what I feel,” the only explanation Badii is willing to offer, to his decision of suicide, challenges the movie itself. If no one can feel what others experience, then there is no point in watching. Badii’s hesitations, the distress in his eyes, performed by Ershadi with restraint or reluctance, belie what he is saying, the same way certain actions and casual comments inadvertently reveal his will to live. He lets road workers help him get his Range Rover out of a rut on the side of a hill over which he could have plunged to his death. He refuses an offer of an omelette because “eggs are bad for me.”
Kiarostami tells the story of Badii in a monotone. The movie is primarily based on conversations which are very long, elusive and enigmatic. The intentions are misunderstood. The Range Rover is seen driving for long periods in the wasteland, or parked overlooking desolation, while Badhi smokes a cigarette. Any two characters are rarely seen in the same shot, reportedly because Kiarostami shot the movie himself, first sitting in the driver's seat, then in the passenger's seat.
Conclusion
Here, we talked about Iranian cinema and the movement that it brought changing world’s perspective of cinema. Taste of Cherry by Abbas Kiarostami is such a movement that is still stirring within Cinephiles. We have discussed Minimalism and how Iranian Cinema took this philosophical approach within its structure. Taste of Cherry is that poem one reads in their solace and something that sticks to you for a long time. Something about Taste of Cherry resists melodrama or violence even though the subject matter gives scope for a melodramatic opening. The ending has a completeness to it— “Tell your men to stay near the tree to rest. The shoot is over” are the film’s last words—but it is not the ending. It returns its protagonist to life outside the film. The story takes place on an unspecified holiday, maybe one of the martyrs’ holidays that occur in Iran in the fall. Maybe Taste of Cherry was shot at different times of the year, but it seems to unfold in an autumn that occasionally turns to spring—the few trees and plants in the landscape appear to be both fading to brown and turning green. It’s that promise of spring hidden in the movie that keeps everything alive.
Source :
1/ Amazon Prime
2/Rajnish Sridhar, Department of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University
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