Kiarostami: Taste of Cherry - KarazwLaimoon

Cine Club: Wednesday 1 October 2014 (7 pm)

Title:   Taste of Cherry ("Ta’m e Guilass")
Director:  Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)
Released:  1977
Language:  Persian (Eng S/T)
Duration:  1 hour and 35 min
Key Actors:  Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman, Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari

Interesting Links about the Film:
Trailer on YouTube Click Here
IMDB Click Here
Movie Guide Click Here
The Guardian Click Here
Article: Driving into the Void by Hamish Ford Click Here
Nick’s Flicks Picks Click Here
Alt Film Guide Click Here
Movie Retrospect Blog Click Here
New York Times Click Here

Roger Ebert Click Here

Synopsis: (adapted from Wikipedia Click Here)
A middle-aged man drives through Tehran looking for someone to do a job for him, and he offers a large amount of money in return. During his drives with prospective candidates, he 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 . . . .

Director: Abbas Kiarostami (adapted from Wikipedia Click Here)
Abbas Kiarostami (Persian: 22 June 1940) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. He has been an active filmmaker since 1970.  Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker Trilogy (1987–94), Close-Up (1990), Taste of Cherry (1997) (awarded Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival), and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999). In his recent films, Certified Copy (2010) and Like Someone in Love (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran, in Italy and Japan, respectively.

Kiarostami has worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer and has designed credit titles and publicity material. He is also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. He is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes pioneering directors such as Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahram Beizai, and Parviz Kimiavi. These filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.

Kiarostami has a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary-style narrative films, for stories that take place in rural villages, and for conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of contemporary Iranian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films.