Films › Cinematography
Taste of Cherry
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, 1997
Abbas Kiarostami shot most of Taste of Cherry inside a moving car, using a fixed windshield mounted camera and reverse angle setups that isolate Mr. Badii from his passengers even while they share the frame, a blocking choice that visualizes his psychological isolation without a single line naming it. Kiarostami often directed the passenger actors separately from Homayoun Ershadi and cut their conversations together afterward, meaning some exchanges were never actually performed together in real time, a construction technique worth studying for anyone shooting dialogue heavy two handers on a limited schedule. The dusty ochre hillside locations outside Tehran are shot in long static wide takes that flatten the landscape into something abstract, denying easy emotional cues about the character's fate. The controversial video coda, which breaks the fictional frame to show the crew at work, is a directorial risk that forces viewers to reconsider everything preceding it as constructed rather than observed. This is essential study for any director interested in minimalism, ambiguity, and the ethics of representing suicide without moralizing.
What to watch for
Notice how conversations inside the car rarely show both speakers in the same shot, a clue to how the scenes were actually built in the edit.
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