Taste of CherryThere's a reason you instinctively know not to get into cars with strangers. In Taste of Cherry, Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) drives through the streets and outskirts of Tehran looking for someone whom he can hire to perform a job. Badii's motivations and the job itself are left intentionally ambiguous for the first third of the film, leading the audience to suspect some dark motive, reinforced by his shifty, even suspicious behavior. When it is revealed that what Badii is hiring for is an accomplice in his own suicide, our perception of his motivations changes, but his methods of procurement do not.
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Taste of Cherry is filmed in a cinema verite style, familiar territory for Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami, featuring similar elements from his body of work--like Certified Copy or Like Someone in Love. For example, Mr. Badii does a great deal of driving, and we watch him through the windshield or the passenger seat in his odyssey. His journey through the winding paths along the hillsides outside overlooking Tehran is a path he drives over several times, as he has done before the beginning of the film, having already dug a grave for himself. But Badii just needs someone to bury him in it, and is willing to pay, but not willing to disclose the job's details until he takes them there to see for themselves. As Badii drives along the roads and pathways, we are often looking at him, as if trying to understand the true motive behind his complex path to suicide. Our observations of him are ones where we do not have the benefit of inner monologue, and our attempts to appreciate the pain he professes he has is made more difficult by his evasive and deceptive behavior. The opening title to Taste of Cherry says in Arabic, "in the name of God"; it is referring to the sanctity of life, that in Islam--as it is in many religions--the act of suicide is a sinful one, and it is anathema for others to aid him in the practice. Badii is counting on being able to recruit someone unscrupulous--perhaps as unscrupulous as himself--to go forward with such an act, but encounters men who do not wish to aid him in his self-destruction, as passive as their involvement might be, no matter the money involved. Badii is constantly searching for some conspirator in this enterprise, but why drive so far out into the middle of nowhere to that end, when from the start, he is surrounded by people on the street? Because although Badii desperately tries to convince everyone else--including the audience--that he wants to die, there is doubt; and his journey in his Range Rover is ultimately one of introspection, contemplative and soul-searching.
Badii's efforts to find someone--always men--to help him is intentionally vague from the start, with his pushy recruitment methods suggesting anything from psychosis to homosexuality. His endgame is similarly taboo, so it becomes reasonable to see why he is adverse to disclose his job, but he is overtly oblivious to the concerns of those who he engages, as though he is unable to understand their concerns or fears about his intentions. The first person he picks up is a young man, a soldier (Safar Ali Moradi) originally from Kurdistan, whom Badii attempts to manipulate and even bully into taking up the job. There is a sense that they connect on a level of nostalgia, such as when Badii reminisces on his time in the service, and they talk of how they'd count while doing drills. After the soldier, Badii picks up a seminarian (Mir Hossein Noori) originally from Afghanistan, and in order to try to convince the religious student, Badii attempts to utilize philosophy and theology, attempting to rationalize his wish for death on an intellectual level. But in each of these moments, it is Badii who is attempting to convince his passenger--to sell them on the idea--looking for justification, like an addict looking for an enabler. In the first two instances, Badii does most of the talking, believing it necessary to making them believe in his actions, almost as though he were attempting to convince himself as well. It is only when Badii has brought aboard his third guest, Mr. Bagheri (Abdolrahman Bagheri), that he finds someone who acknowledges that he will do it. Bagheri, however, is the one who does all the talking, attempting to convince Badii why suicide is not the answer, telling him of his own near suicide narrowly averted by eating mulberries from the tree he was ready to hang himself from.
Abbas Kiarostami's films generally have consistent themes; two of the most significant ones--deception and interpersonal connection--are abundant in Taste of Cherry. Badii looks personable enough; he is dressed in a casual, non-threatening way, and has an amiable smile and soft features. His inviting appearance is what makes the tired soldier accept his invitation for a lift to his barracks, even though it is nigh-universally understood that getting into a car with a stranger is dangerous. Badii's initial attempt to invite a construction worker (Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari) into his car goes over poorly because of how overly pushy he is. Badii learns from this maneuver, but only in so far as to manipulate others to assist him in reaching his goal, a tactic which does not engender sympathy. Badii appears to have a difficult time understanding people, more dependent on trying to motivate their responses to meet his own. We know precious little about Badii, but I suspect that he has a career in selling used cars like his Range Rover. One could also speculate that the "pain" he refers to comes from a disconnect with people, an inability to genuinely understand their motivations. He is rarely rude, but all throughout Taste of Cherry, there is the inescapable sense that what he is doing is insidious more than pitiable. He learns of the stories of the people he meets, but their histories are largely for the audience's benefit to see that Badii belongs to a truly multicultural city, where people from all walks of life from the Middle East come to work, to save up money to send back home to their families, to avoid the current war in their homeland, of their pasts as farmers or their professions as taxidermists. All of these elements seem unimportant to Badii, save that they are points he can leverage as he selfishly applies them to his own situation. Does that mean we want Badii to get his wish? Does it mean that because Badii may be selfish that he should not enjoy the blessing of life? The consensus of Taste of Cherry is "no", but the challenge is that Badii must reach that conclusion himself, and can only count on others for direction. Whether Badii achieves his ostensible goal or not I will not say, but I will say that I believe the reason the film crew is a part of the conclusion is that Taste of Cherry is about stories shared--just as Badii's story is shared with us, the stories of his three passengers have been shared with him. And whether Badii will acknowledge it or not, these stories affect us and influence our understanding of life and our place in it.
Recommended for: Fans of a life-affirming drama filmed with an impromptu and unrehearsed look. The voyeuristic element of the direction makes us a witness to a man on the brink, a point where no doubt everyone has felt themselves at during some point or another, and how the messages we absorb and understand during these moments can be essential in our lives.
Badii's efforts to find someone--always men--to help him is intentionally vague from the start, with his pushy recruitment methods suggesting anything from psychosis to homosexuality. His endgame is similarly taboo, so it becomes reasonable to see why he is adverse to disclose his job, but he is overtly oblivious to the concerns of those who he engages, as though he is unable to understand their concerns or fears about his intentions. The first person he picks up is a young man, a soldier (Safar Ali Moradi) originally from Kurdistan, whom Badii attempts to manipulate and even bully into taking up the job. There is a sense that they connect on a level of nostalgia, such as when Badii reminisces on his time in the service, and they talk of how they'd count while doing drills. After the soldier, Badii picks up a seminarian (Mir Hossein Noori) originally from Afghanistan, and in order to try to convince the religious student, Badii attempts to utilize philosophy and theology, attempting to rationalize his wish for death on an intellectual level. But in each of these moments, it is Badii who is attempting to convince his passenger--to sell them on the idea--looking for justification, like an addict looking for an enabler. In the first two instances, Badii does most of the talking, believing it necessary to making them believe in his actions, almost as though he were attempting to convince himself as well. It is only when Badii has brought aboard his third guest, Mr. Bagheri (Abdolrahman Bagheri), that he finds someone who acknowledges that he will do it. Bagheri, however, is the one who does all the talking, attempting to convince Badii why suicide is not the answer, telling him of his own near suicide narrowly averted by eating mulberries from the tree he was ready to hang himself from.
Abbas Kiarostami's films generally have consistent themes; two of the most significant ones--deception and interpersonal connection--are abundant in Taste of Cherry. Badii looks personable enough; he is dressed in a casual, non-threatening way, and has an amiable smile and soft features. His inviting appearance is what makes the tired soldier accept his invitation for a lift to his barracks, even though it is nigh-universally understood that getting into a car with a stranger is dangerous. Badii's initial attempt to invite a construction worker (Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari) into his car goes over poorly because of how overly pushy he is. Badii learns from this maneuver, but only in so far as to manipulate others to assist him in reaching his goal, a tactic which does not engender sympathy. Badii appears to have a difficult time understanding people, more dependent on trying to motivate their responses to meet his own. We know precious little about Badii, but I suspect that he has a career in selling used cars like his Range Rover. One could also speculate that the "pain" he refers to comes from a disconnect with people, an inability to genuinely understand their motivations. He is rarely rude, but all throughout Taste of Cherry, there is the inescapable sense that what he is doing is insidious more than pitiable. He learns of the stories of the people he meets, but their histories are largely for the audience's benefit to see that Badii belongs to a truly multicultural city, where people from all walks of life from the Middle East come to work, to save up money to send back home to their families, to avoid the current war in their homeland, of their pasts as farmers or their professions as taxidermists. All of these elements seem unimportant to Badii, save that they are points he can leverage as he selfishly applies them to his own situation. Does that mean we want Badii to get his wish? Does it mean that because Badii may be selfish that he should not enjoy the blessing of life? The consensus of Taste of Cherry is "no", but the challenge is that Badii must reach that conclusion himself, and can only count on others for direction. Whether Badii achieves his ostensible goal or not I will not say, but I will say that I believe the reason the film crew is a part of the conclusion is that Taste of Cherry is about stories shared--just as Badii's story is shared with us, the stories of his three passengers have been shared with him. And whether Badii will acknowledge it or not, these stories affect us and influence our understanding of life and our place in it.
Recommended for: Fans of a life-affirming drama filmed with an impromptu and unrehearsed look. The voyeuristic element of the direction makes us a witness to a man on the brink, a point where no doubt everyone has felt themselves at during some point or another, and how the messages we absorb and understand during these moments can be essential in our lives.