Abbas Kiarostami: The Taste of Cherry

Director/Writer - Abbas Kiarostami

Cast Character

Homayoun Ershadi ... Mr. Badii
Abdolrahman Bagheri ... Mr. Bagheri
Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari ... Soldier
Safar Ali Moradi ... The soldier
Mir Hossein Noori ... The Seminarian

The Taste of Cherry begins in the car of Mr. Badii who is on the most painful trip of his life. He looks out carefully to pick up hitchhikers to aid him in ending his life. He drives a nice SUV so naturally people approach him offering to work as laborers. He drives and tries to carefully pick the right man. He is affluent and patient choosing meaning and precision over desperation. He calls a laborer to his car and tells him he can solve his money problems. The man says no.

He sees a man who is collecting some items and figures maybe he can coax him to do a job for him. He tells him he will be well paid. The man returns to collecting plastic bags as his only source of income. He picks up a soldier who is on his way to the barracks. He is young and tentative - just what Mr. Badii needs. The soldier is tired but Mr. Badii tells him a soldier is never tired. He is young, only drafted two months ago. He tells Mr. Badii he is from Kurdistan. Mr. Badii concerned asked what he did before. The soldier says he was a farmer. The soldier was in school but gave up. Mr. Badii asks him a lot of questions trying to see if this is the right person for his plans. He asks the soldier to stay in the car to do a high paying job. Mr. Badii tells him he was in the military and met his best friends there. The soldier finally asks him what he wants after their small talk. He tells him not to be concerned with the job but rather look forward to how good the pay is. The soldier keeps asking what the job is and Mr. Badii tells him, "Listen when you ask a laborer to dig foundations does he ask if they're for a hospital, a lunatic asylum or a mosque or a school? He does his job and gets his pay."

The soldier now eerie wants to leave the car but Mr. Badii persuades him to stay. Outside the car he shows a soldier a hole. He tells him he wants to be buried here and at 6 a.m. to call his name. If he responds dig him up from the ground, if he doesn't respond take 200,000 tomans from the car. The soldier refuses and Badii asks him why. He tells the soldier he needs him and doesn't want to beg him. He says he can help the soldier. He tells Mr. Badii he can't throw dirt on someone's head. Cleverly trying to disassociate the act from himself he changes to the third person, "If he was alive he'd stand up to respond." He tells the soldier he isn't killing anyone only covering it up. He tells him to look at the hole and it is God's will.

He doesn't want to dishonor the soldier by giving him a gun to do the act but rather a spade, after all he was a farmer before. He tells him to pretend he's farming and that he's manure to be spread at the foot of the tree. The soldier unflinching won't budge. When Mr. Badii comes back in the car the soldier runs out the car and back to the barracks. Mr. Badii looks affectionately to the crows in the sky hoping his fate is soon. Outside he sees poor laborers who might do the deed but drives on. He needs someone as desperate as he to take the job - someone with weak beliefs. He talks to a security guard and is invited to join him. He tells him it's a nice place which the guard tells him, "Nice it's nothing but earth and dust." Mr. Badii replies, "You don't think earth is nice? Earth gives us all the good things."

Mr. Badii asks if the guard ever gets lonely. He tells Badii he is used to it and offers him some tea. After small talk about the wars about each-other's countries Mr. Badii pitches him his deal, "Tell me today's a holiday, so why are you here alone? You feel sad, so do I. Come for a drive. We can get a change of scene, talk." The guard says he can't leave. Badii says he will see his friend the seminarian. He picks him up and asks him why he studied in a seminary in Afghanistan. The man tells him because the seminary doesn't pay well he has to save up by working as a laborer. He tells him he is lucky he picked him up. "It's your hands that I need. I don't need your tongue or your mind. I'm lucky that those hands belong to a true believer. With the patience, endurance and perseverance that you learn you're the best person to carry out this job." The man asks what is intended of him. Badii tells him the act will go against his beliefs. "You believe God gives life and takes it when he sees fit. But there comes a time when a man can't go on. He's exhausted and can't wait for God to act. So he decides to act himself. There that's what's called suicide."

He tells the seminarian that he needs him to free him from this life. His reason why wouldn't help him to know and he can't talk about it. He wouldn't understand because he wouldn't feel what he, Mr. Badii, feels. The seminarian tells him suicide is wrong. Badii after listening to the seminarian lecture tells him, "I know that suicide is one of the deadly sins, but being unhappy is a great sin too. When you're unhappy you hurt other people. Isn't that a sin too?" He takes the man to the same tree as the soldier. He says tonight he will swallow all his sleeping pills. What he wants the seminarian to do is "wait until dawn then come here like a kind brother and cover me with soil. That's all." The seminarian pleads with Badii that the Koran tells him, "You shall not kill yourself." He asks Mr. Badii, "What's the difference between killing someone and killing yourself?" Both are killing. The man tries to offer Badii some food with his friend and Badii senses his refusal so drives off. At a construction site Badii looks at a rock crusher temptingly as no one will assist in his suicide.

Mr. Badii finally meets a man who has no problems with his plan but is told, "You have to do it properly with all your heart." The man tells Badii if he doesn't explain his problem who can help him? He tells Badii every problem has a solution. He tells him if everyone killed themselves over problems there wouldn't be anyone left on Earth. The man tells Badii after he got married he had so many problems he decided to kill himself. After a long talk on outlook and so forth surprisingly the man agrees to Badii's terms and helps him. Badii makes sure what he has to do precisely. He agrees only because his child needs some cure.

He drives his car around to talk to a guard and asks if he knows the old man with the blue jacket. The guard tells him his name is Mr. Bagheri. He tells him to make sure he is dead before burying him. That night Badii takes a taxi to the burial location. In his grave he waits looking at the moon through the clouds. We see in a flashback Mr. Badii on a film set - something to ease the audience in a scene with infantry marching near the tree he was buried. In the car when he talked to the young soldier he tells him the best time of his life was when he was in the military. Perhaps the highlights of his life are played back before he is released from this earth. Perhaps the tree was a cherry tree and like the final passenger in his car wanted to be buried near something that gave others pleasure.