TASTE OF CHERRY (1997)Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Stars: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari
After introducing Anna to Kathryn Bigelow's war drama The Hurt Locker (she dug it, and I continue to), she suggested that it might play well as an intro to one of the films that I'm required to watch before our wedding day - the Palme d'Or winning film Taste Of Cherry.
After the ever-increasing, bomb-defusing tension of Hurt Locker, it was certainly a nice cool-down. Cherry, which takes place primarily in a car, deals with an Iranian man driving around Tehran in search of one, fairly-simple thing; he needs someone to bury him after he's killed himself. As one might expect, this isn't an easy task - suicide is frowned upon in the States, but it's something that is simply not talked about in Iran.
It's a bit of a reverse Christmas Carol: He picks up three different travelers, each representing either past, present or future, to some degree - but unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist embraces the thought of an untimely death. You don't end up learning much about the central character of the story, and he's a bit of a blank slate personality-wise - which is precisely the point. He's a lost person, like all of us; merely a collection of fragmented memories.
If you find the synopsis interesting at all, I would say it's worth a watch. It's most certainly not for all tastes, but I found it interesting enough. The photography and direction are quite compelling, in a minimalist way. Kiarostami is a renowned director worldwide, but this is my first exposure to him (Anna is the big Iranian film fan).
My only complaint is with the ending, which breaks the fourth wall in a way that I found jarring (which was probably intentional). Apparently that's a staple of Kiarostami's works, to blend fact with fiction, so I might look back on this film more positively once I've absorbed more of his repertoire.
FREDERICK OPINES: GOOD
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