Cinema
Taste of Cherry
طعم گیلاس
Abbas Kiarostami · 1997
Synopsis
Mr Badii, a middle-aged man, drives over the dusty hills on the outskirts of Tehran, looking for someone who would accept, for a large sum, an unusual job: to come the next morning to a pit he has dug and cover him with earth if he is dead. He picks up three passengers in turn, a young Kurdish soldier, an Afghan seminarian and an elderly taxidermist, and each of these conversations brings out a different way of looking at life and death.
Context
The leading role was given to Homayoun Ershadi, who had never acted and whom the director had noticed in a Tehran traffic jam; the other performers are also non-professionals. The speakers are rarely filmed together, the director giving them their lines from the passenger seat. The film ends with images shot on video showing the crew at work. As its subject is forbidden by Islam, it could not at first be shown in Iran, and was shown only after its award at Cannes.
Who it is for
A film in Persian shot almost entirely in a car. It is worth knowing that the pace is slow, that everything is conveyed through conversation, and that the film deals with suicide.
Prizes and reception
Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, shared with L'Anguille by Shōhei Imamura: the first won by an Iranian film.