Taste of Cherry/1997 ‧ Drama ‧ 1h 38m

Honestly, When I saw this movie for the first time, I thought, What is it? What does this movie even mean? Have I wasted my one and a half hours after this critically acclaimed movie! The movie is about a guy who wants to commit suicide and needs someone who can bury him after his death. So, he roams around the outskirts of Tehran to find the guy who can do this job for him. In that process, he finds three different people. He talks to them take them to the place where he is gonna commit suicide and try to convince them to do that. Two of them deny his offer but in the end, one guy agrees to do that job because he needs money.

The problem arises from the way the movie shoots and how slow it is! The long shots of cars roaming on the dusty mountains of Tehran. Second, you don’t get to know about the character. What does he do? Why does he want to end his life? Does he have a family or money issue? So, it takes a long time to connect with him. Plus his death feels like the death of someone about whom you don’t know much, someone like a distant relative! It’s sad but you don’t care much!

But a few weeks later my perspective has been changing towards this film. I don’t want to be that pseudo critic who puts his words in your mouth and forcefully makes you accept that the movie you have seen is a masterpiece! In my personal experience, I realised I bother too much about one guy’s identity over his horrific thought of committing suicide. You read many people wants to commit suicide every day, maybe that guy is a common metaphor for these people. As a director, writer Abbas Kiarostami, the subject, the day before suicide is very interesting. What would he/she eat? What would he/she do or think? Does he/she ever think about what will happen after the world ends? Even in the movie, the protagonist has a serious discussion who believes committing suicide is a sin! These conversations are very deep and beautifully written.

I know many people have a problem with the ending but for me more and more I think about this movie [ And this movie is very thought-provoking!] I realised there are many layers and the philosophical conversation about life and death in this movie that can only be understood if you deep dive into this, without using the typical mindset of ready for taking away kind of endings. 

  

I hope you like the recommendation!

Cheers!