Musing on Mortality: Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Taste of Cherry’ (1997) — On MUBI India, HBO Max & Criterion
Film Analysis in 10 Slides
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PALME D’OR
Taste of Cherry won the Palme d’Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. It shared the award with The Eel.
SYNOPSIS
The middle-aged Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) drives around the hills above Tehran trying to recruit somebody who can bury him after he commits suicide. Although he is willing to pay handsomely for it, those whom he approaches turn it down. A Kurdish soldier refuses to take up the job as it is not that of a soldier. Despite Badii trying to convince an Afghan seminarist, suicide is against his religious conviction. In fact, he wants Badii to find a solution to his problem and drop his plan! The third recruit, an Azeri (Azerbaijani Turk), is middle aged with enough life experience — including a suicide attempt. So, he speaks more profusely than the others. All the three recruits are immigrants: a Kurd, an Afghan and an Azeri. Will the Azeri help Badii in carrying out his plan for which no reason is offered?
STRUCTURE
Like some of Kiarostami’s other films this is a road movie in which we see a character travelling by car in an area covered by desert and hills. The car kicking up dust and filling up the frame is a recurring image in the film. As observed by the film theorist and author Kristin Thompson in a Criterion Collection video, “repeated shots of the same landscapes across the film create what we might term rhymes enhancing their lyrical quality.”
The first half of the scene with the Afghan is shot inside the car alternating between the two with the desolate landscape in the background. The second half has long shots of the car moving along the winding road in the hilly area — now you see it, now you don’t — forming a rhythm as mentioned by Kristin Thompson.
STUCK CAR
In one of the best shots in the film, as Badii keeps driving on the road at the edge of the hill scouting for a candidate to help him carry out his plan, suddenly he finds that his car is stuck. A front wheel is just outside the edge of the road. The long shot shows the stuck car against the background of the desolate landscape — a telling image that portrays his condition. Labourers rush to lift the car and put it back on the road.
CEMENT FACTORY
The cement factory in operation is a masterly scene in Taste of Cherry. The giant machinery, the earth moving equipment, falling of stones and sand, the noise and the dust — everything eloquently brings out the protagonist’s condition. His huge shadow is seen alongside the shadows of falling stones and sand. The shadow of an earth moving vehicle obliterates his shadow. In another shot his shadow is superimposed over falling stones. It’s as though he is being battered by them.
THE AZERI
The Azeri narrates the story of how he happened to find and eat deliciously sweet mulberries when he was about to hang himself. Then he witnessed the sunrise at the mountain top. Some children stopped by on the way to school. They asked him to shake the mulberry tree and ate the fruit.
He even cracks a joke about a Turk and tells Badii that his mind is ill, there is nothing wrong with him and Badii should change his outlook. The Azeri needs the money that Badii is offering, still he tries to convince Badii not to commit suicide.
Towards the end of this scene, the landscape without vegetation briefly changes to lush green along with the sophisticated use of sync sound.
THE TITLE
Interestingly, Badii has dug a pit under a cherry tree, giving the title for the film! Will Badii have the taste of cherry that life offers him?
AMBIGUOUS END
In yet another masterly scene in The Taste of Cherry, the Azeri’s (third recruit) talk has some effect on the protagonist Badii. He is sensitized to see the beauty of the world around him, the jet with its trail running across the sky, children running in the ground and the beautiful sunset.
It’s to the credit of Abbas Kiarostami that he doesn’t show Badii changing after noticing the beauty of the world around him. We see him lying down in the pit in the night. Even here there is ambiguity: He has told Azeri to throw 2 stones on him in the morning as he may be just asleep!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Just when we think the film is over, it cuts to broad daylight in which soldiers are seen marching on the road. The actor who plays Badii is seen walking towards the director Abbas Kiarostami, lighting a cigarette. It’s after all a movie!
Kiarostami announces over his megaphone that the shooting is over and asks the soldiers to take rest under the tree. In the last shot we see a car moving over the winding road and disappearing. For the first time there is music as the soundtrack plays a saxophone to end the film in an upbeat note!
Taste of Cherry takes up the subject of suicide, which is considered as a sin especially in Iranian culture, distances the audience from proceedings and elevates the film to the level of a musing on mortality.
