FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
 |
| FILM Taste of Cherry Taste of Cherry is a graceful and gentle film, one which is as wise and unpredictable as myth. Set in an urban construction site in Iran, the movie details a man's quest to find someone to bury his body after he commits suicide. Amid the drone of heavy equipment and the clamor of unemployed laborers looking for work, Mr. Badii selects a young soldier, a Moslem seminarian and an aging taxidermist as prospective accomplices. He offers each man a lucrative cash reward for his services. The three are all hardworking and poor; each has known heavy work as a laborer, and each has excellent economic reasons for accepting the task. Economic reasons do not prevail, however. Director Abbas Kiarostami has deep respect and love for ordinary folks and their cares; despite the squeeze of family troubles, war and the bleakness of an urban, industrial environment, each of Mr. Badii's recruits, in singular ways, affirms his own, and Mr. Badii's life. Kiarostami watches, listens and, most importantly, sees and hears how people act and speak. He notes, for instance, that in life there are few swelling violins enhancing action and fewer car chases. There are, rather, people looking for work and people whose work means toil under a hot sun picking up scrap plastic. Kiarostami pays attention to the children who play in rusted out cars and the young couple who demurely ask a stranger to take their picture. He notices the shy people, the suspicious people, the lonely ones. He appreciates the wisdom of an old man who stuffs partridges for students in the Museum of Natural History: "The world isn't the way you see it. Change your outlook," the old man advises, and the world changes. Kiarostami's directorial methods are governed by Captain Kirk's code of non-interference - ambient sound often blots out dialogue; characters sometimes don't hear one another or refuse to answer questions. The result is natural-sounding talk that emphasizes the characters' struggles to engage with one another. This is no documentary, however, and even if it were, Kiarostami would never lose sight of the ruses and manipulations of filmmaking inherent in that and in every film genre; in a brilliant stroke that's at once artful and curiously respectful of his characters' rights to choose their own destinies, Kiarostami is generous enough to let us in on some of his own choices. There are fine, understated performances from the whole cast, particularly on the part of Homayon Ershadi as the quietly desperate Mr. Badii. Taste of Cherry deservedly won the 1997 Palme d'Or at Cannes - it is not to be missed. |
| |