Taste of Cherry

UPC: 037429137222

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Adult Situations]

Summary: Co-winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, The Taste of Cherry is the venerable Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's examination of life, death and the small miracles in between. Homayoun Ershadi?stars as Mr. Badii, a middle-aged man wishing to kill himself; driving his Range Rover across the arid outskirts of Tehran, he searches for someone to aid him in his final hours, someone who will agree to bury his body if he succeeds in his mission -- a planned overdose of sleeping pills -- or rescue him if he fails. Offering a large sum of money in exchange for services rendered, he first picks up a Kurdish soldier who ultimately flees in fear upon learning of Badii's plan; the next passenger, an Afghani seminary student, instead attempts to convince him of the sanctity of human life. Finally, Badii picks up a Turkish taxidermist who reluctantly agrees to check the body for signs of life; having long ago contemplated suicide himself, the taxidermist also tries to dissuade Badii from ending it all, accepting the offer only because he needs the money to care for his sick daughter. Kiarostami's refusal to answer the film's two most obvious questions -- exactly why does Mr. Badii wish to end his life, and does he successfully carry out his plan? -- invites viewers to share in his protagonist's plight by triggering their own powers of imagination. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Palme d'Or – Cannes Film Festival Best Foreign Film – National Society of Film Critics Film Presented – Telluride Film Festival

Features: Theatrical trailer
Rare interview with filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami by Iranian film scholar Dr. Jamsheed Akrami
Kiarostami feature filmography

Taste of Cherry

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 07/20/1999

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Vistavision

Audio: 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 95 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) Faroese

Subtitles: English

Region: Universal Compatability

Lucia Bozzola

Abbas Kiarostami's A Taste of Cherry (1997) consolidated his international reputation as the top director to emerge from Iran's post-revolution movie renaissance. Working in his signature mode of repetition and ellipsis, Kiarostami's story of a man's enigmatic search to find someone willing to violate Islamic law by assisting him in committing suicide becomes a meditation on the stages of life and what makes it worth living. The multi-ethnic trio of men that enter Badii's Range Rover speaks to the social realities that enable Badii to make his request without having to explain himself; Kiarostami's refusal to show passenger and driver together in the car enhances Badii's existential isolation. Alternating between interior car shots and long shots of the car weaving through the hills, Kiarostami's striking images of the bronze autumn landscape metaphorically merge with Badii's wish to die, yet the golden sunset and the lone tree by Badii's chosen gravesite evoke the simple pleasures extolled by his last passenger. Leaving Badii's fate uncertain, A Taste of Cherry's coda provoked both derision and admiration, as Kiarostami forces the audience to reconsider whether a film needs to explain it all. A Taste of Cherry shared the top prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, confirming Kiarostami's and Iran's place at the vanguard of 1990s international art cinema. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Abdolrahman Bagheri  Actor 
Mir Hossein Noori  Actor 
Safar Ali Moradi  Actor 
Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari  Actor 
Abbas Kiarostami  Director 
Abbas Kiarostami  Producer 
Abbas Kiarostami  Screenwriter 
Homayoun Ershadi  Actor 

Country: Iran