Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry"

Screen time is 5:30p. I will be waiting at a table in the Taste Cafe across from the theater from 5:00p on, wearing my black fedora. (The Café occupies the unenclosed area in front of the MFA Bookstore. Ask a guard or docent how to find it.) At 5:20p we'll enter the theater and take our seats. Latecomers: If you'd like to sit with us, come inside the theater and look for my fedora. Bon chance!

FILM SUMMARY

“Taste of Cherry,” often regarded as the masterpiece of Iran’s greatest filmmaker, opens the 2017 edition of the Boston Festival of Films from Iran.

Directed, produced, and written by Abbas Kiarostami
Worldwide release: Janus Films and Zeitgeist Films, March 1998
95 minutes / 35mm
Farsi, with English subtitles Mr. Badii, a haggard-looking middle-aged man, drives through the outskirts of Tehran looking for someone to do a job for him, offering a large amount of money in return. To prospective candidates, Badii reveals that he plans to kill himself and has already dug the grave. He needs someone to throw earth on his body after his death. He does not discuss why he wants to commit suicide. His first recruit, a young, shy Kurdish soldier, refuses the job and flees from Badii's car. His second recruit, an Afghan seminarian, also declines, because he has religious objections to suicide. The third is an Azeri taxidermist. He is willing to help Badii because he needs the money for his sick child, but tries to talk him out of it; he reveals that he too wanted to commit suicide a long time ago but chose to live after tasting a few mulberries. The Azeri promises to throw earth on Badii if he finds him dead in the morning. That night, Badii lies in his grave while a thunderstorm stirs …

RATINGS, REVIEWS, AWARDS

Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer 84% (31 reviews)

Audience score 83%

Rotten Tomatoes top critics https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/taste_of_cherry/reviews/?type=top_critics

Taste of Cherry tied for the Palme d’Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, and was named Best Foreign Film by the New York Circle of Film Critics. The Criterion Collection enrolled it on its roster in 1999.

BLURBS & ATTITUDES

“We never know why the principal character wants to take his own life, and neither he nor the movie ever invite sympathy or even sadness in the usual way. The point is that he does not merely wish for suicide, but utter self-annihilation. He does not want anyone to know he has killed himself: he wants simply to vanish, and the painful tragicomedy of trying to find someone to bury him – with all its legal illogicality – makes explicit the agony of this. The film speaks profoundly to anyone who has suffered from depression: it is something to compare with Michael Henchard’s will at the end of Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge, in which he commands, in a kind of imperious agony, that no one must remember him.” – “Abbas Kiarostami: sophisticated, self-possessed master of cinematic poetry,” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 4 July 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/jul/04/abbas-kiarostami-master-of-cinematic-poetry-peter-bradshaw ;

[video] New York Times Critics’ Picks: A.O. Scott on “Taste of Cherry” https://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/1194840444080/critics-picks-taste-of-cherry.html ;

“The interpretations cut in so many directions because the elements are so simple, yet their arrangement is so intricately, seductively suggestive. Why does the film not tell us why Badii wants to kill himself (perhaps because what it really concerns is why he, or anyone, would want to live)? Why does it oddly pose suicide as involving more than one person (which is actually true of life)? Here, seeing begins in asking.” – Godfrey Cheshire, “Taste of Cherry,” Current, The Criterion Coalition https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/55-taste-of-cherry ;

A more finely-grained inquiry into the Kiarostami doctrine of suicide: “Concepts of Suicide in Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry,” Constantine Santas, senses of cinema, September 2000 http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/abbas-kiarostami-9/taste/ ;

Just to confirm for you that not all is sweetness and harmony in the circles of film critics: “But is ‘Taste of Cherry’ a worthwhile viewing experience? I say it is not.” – Roger Ebert, “Taste of Cherry,” Chicago Sun-TImes, 2/27/98 http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taste-of-cherry-1998 ;

If you’re up for it, let Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader rebut the estimable Mr. Ebert at length. “Fill in the Blanks,” Chicago Reader, 5/29/98 http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/1998/05/fill-in-the-blanks/

GETTING THERE

(%) By T, the Museum of Fine Arts can be reached either by the Green Line E train (Museum of Fine Arts stop) or the Ruggles station on the Orange Line (followed by a bit of a walk through the Northeastern University campus).

(#) The film will screen in the Remis Auditorium on Level 1. Enter the Museum via the Huntington Avenue entrance (at the statue of the praying horseback Indian). The ticket counter is to the right. Once you've bought your ticket, ask an attendant to direct you to the Auditorium. As you approach it, the Auditorium will be on your left and the Taste Café and the Museum Bookstore will be on your right.

(&) After the film, we'll hang out in the Café to talk over the film and work our way through its variety of sandwiches, salads, and desserts, wine bar, selection of craft beers, and "gourmet coffee and tea."

Looking forward to seeing you!