Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry has divided critics since it won the Palme D'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. While I can't say it shook me to my core, I was never bored even though its neorealist style is not my cup of tea. A man drives around rural Iran looking for someone to bury him after he commits suicide. He talks with a couple of prospects before a Turkish immigrant agrees to do the deed. The ending is ambiguous, but it is the journey and its glimpses of Iranian life that is the point here.
Some have voiced frustration that we gain no insight into the protagonist and his plight. I would view him more as a tabula rasa that Kiarostami uses to provide a contrast to a country growing more fundamentalist and militaristic. By his dress and vehicle, the protagonist can be seen as more Western and elitist than any of the other characters he encounters. He is alienated from the harsh surroundings and fails to engage with anyone over the course of the film. The Turk, who urges him to try to savor the beauty and bounty of life, stands in contrast as a man who is still in touch with his childlike sense of wonder; like Tolstoy's Platon Karataev.
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