Abbas Kiarostami has not only been critically lauded by film critics and theorists, but also by some of the greatest directors, from the late Akira Kurosawa and Atom Egoyan to the legendary 'Film God' Jean-Luc Godard. This is probably of his fresh use of ideas and spiritual/humanism way to directing and writing his films. His work, according to the director himself, is reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky (who had made the most spiritual films ever made), Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Theo Angelopoulos and Frederico Fellini (although I would also add directors like, Yasujiro Ozu) who want the audience to let the film live in their minds soons after, letting them fill some details of the story. This technique reminds me both of the short stories of Anton Chekhov and South-Asian Minimalism, such as the 'Palm-Hands Stories' of Yasunari Kawabata (Nobel-Prize laureate), where less is more. His methods of rubbing the line between fiction and nonfiction is an excellent way, a common theme in his films. Taste of Cherry is one of his best films (then again, I have only seen four of them). It is also very demanding, especially the ending, which might be a disappointment (he did made a alternate ending, though, without that video thing at the end, as an experiment in one festival screening). There are many things to notice in this film: (1) The helicopter sounds in the background (some spiritual metaphor?) (2) Earth and Naturalism (there's a lot of earth and dust in this movie, and the far shot of the grave reminded me of a painting by Manet). (3) The acting. The actor remainds almost stone-faced throughout the movie, again showing by concealing. Trivia: The actor, Mr. Badii, was not actually face-to-face with most of his passengers. For the first passenger, the soldier was face-to-face with Kiarostami himself for the whole segment (you never see Mr. Badii and the Soldier in one same shot). In fact, none of the passengers, at the beginning (except probably the taxonomist) knew that he was in a movie. Kiarostami revealed that only to them later (except for the soldier, who actually did ran off). The seminarian actually believed truly that Kiarostami was going to kill himself. Overall, this is an excellent movie. But, it is not the sort one can compare its quality with others (just like one cannot compare the works of David Lynch with others), since it has its own style to it. However, I was confused at one point when the taxonomist said 'Mulberry' instead of 'Cherry', but then again, perhaps he wasn't actually refering to the same thing.
Review of Taste of Cherry
