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Taste of Cherry Movie Review

Taste of Cherry is a 1997 Iranian drama film written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. It’s a film that won the Palme d’Or, but it’s not great due to its problematic ending.

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“Some things are easier to do than to say“

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It is about a man who wants to commit suicide, but he needs a person to bury him after his death. He drives around the suburbs, taking three different men and asking them for the favor to bury him. The premise is extremely dark, but I did find the examination of the issue of suicide very well handled.

The problem here is that the film is minimalist to a fault. There is basically one sequence here stretched into three sequences with three different men, thus the film became a bit repetitive in its structure. The first two men, especially the first one, were not all that memorable, and the movie strikes gold only with that last person.

An older man who himself tried to commit suicide, but came to appreciate life through simple pleasures such as the taste of mulberries, the message here was truly wonderful. Appreciating life in its every fact is all-too important in this day and age of widespread depression and anxiety. This section was the height of the film and the only part where it reached true greatness.

Homayoun Ershadi is phenomenal in the main role and the character is solidly written, though more could have been done to give us his whole story. Still, the performance is terrific and the use of close-ups countered later down the line with wide shots of the entire area made for truly accomplished, meaningful cinematography.

Taste of Cherry is technically minimalist as it is in terms of storytelling too, but I liked that choice as it led to better dialogue and more emotional investment. The movie is about one man only and the focus is rarely directed at other things, which in this instance was the right choice.

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What wasn’t great was that ending. Wow, did I hate that ending. The movie overall would have been infinitely better without this ambiguous, cop-out conclusion where we see the crew filming this movie. This was just another example of how critics fall for this manipulation. A director doesn’t know how to end the film, so he includes a very pretentious, annoying sequence to cap it off, and that is somehow satisfactory. No, it isn’t, and the biggest movie critic of all time was right to single it out.

Taste of Cherry is a minimalist movie about a man trying to find somebody to bury him after he commits suicide. This Palm d’Or winner only struck greatness in that last discussion that features a powerful message about respecting life in all of its most seemingly insignificant delights. The dialogue and the accomplished cinematography are the highlights here. However, what Kiarostami did with that cop-out, honestly bullshit ending was very annoying, and the majority of critics falling for it is even more frustrating. Ebert himself was right to criticize it.

My Rating – 4