#992: KIAROSTAMI, Abbas: Through The Olive Trees (1994)

KIAROSTAMI, Abbas (Iran)
THE KOKER TRILOGY
Through The Olive Trees [1994]
Spine #992
Blu-ray

Abbas Kiarostami first came to international attention for this wondrous, slyly self-referential series of films set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker. Poised delicately between fiction and documentary, comedy and tragedy, the lyrical fables in The Koker Trilogy exemplify both the gentle humanism and the playful sleight of hand that define the director's sensibility. With each successive film, Kiarostami takes us deeper into the behind-the-scenes "reality" of the film that preceded it, heightening our understanding of the complex network of human relationships that sustain both a movie set and a village. The result is a gradual outward zoom that reveals the cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life.

Abbas Kiarostami takes metanarrative gamesmanship to masterful new heights in the final installment of The Koker Trilogy. Unfolding "behind the scenes" of And Life Goes On, this film traces the complications that arise when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors — a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him — creates turmoil on set and leaves the hapless director caught in the middle. An ineffably lovely, gentle human comedy steeped in the folkways of Iranian village life, Through the Olive Trees peels away layer after layer of artifice as it investigates the elusive, alchemical relationship between cinema and reality.

103 minutes

Color
Monaural
in Persian
1:66:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2019

Director/Writer

Abbas Kiarostami was 54 when he wrote and directed Through the Olive Trees.

Other Kiarostami films in the Collection:

#990: Where Is The Friend's House? (1987)
#519: Close-up (1990)
#991: And Life Goes On (1992)
#45: Taste Of Cherry (1997)
#612: Certified Copy (2010)
#708: Like Someone In Love (2012)
#956: 24 Frames (2017)

The Film

In a way, the finale of the Koker Trilogy, could be seen as a meta-meta-meta look at the process of filmmaking.

The boys from Where is the Friend’s House? are back (Babak and Ahmad Ahmandpour) as privileged observers on the film set; Farhad Kheradmand, who played the “director” in And Life Goes On, is back as the director who played Kiarsotami in that film; and Mohammad Ali Keshavarz replaces him as the “director” of this picture!

In addition, Hossein Rezal and Tahereh Ladanian return from their small roles in And Life Goes On, as newlyweds; only for us to discover that they are not only not newlyweds, but that Hossein is desperately trying to convince the shy Tahereh to marry him!

Are these roles they were assigned to play, or is Kiarostami capturing real-life events?

We’ll never know.

Unique to this film is a strong female role, Keshavarz’s assistant and slate-clapper, Mrs. Shiva (Zarifeh Shiva).

**

As in all three films of the Trilogy, the cinematography is stunning (each film had a different DP), and the Brugheul-like wide shots of empty-yet-full landscapes are truly captivating, particularly the final shot, which — like the other two films — leave the viewer gasping for resolution.

Like a never-ending road, there is no such resolution in sight.

Film Rating (0-60):

55

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay by Godfrey Cheshire.

“When conservatives shook up the culture ministry, Kiarostami was forced out of his position at Kanoon … rather nervily, Kiarostami begins Through the Olive Trees, which dramatizes the making of And Life Goes On, in ways that seem to mock some of these charges he was accused of. In fact, in choosing a well-known, imposing actor, Mohammad Ali Keshavarz, to play the director of And Life Goes On, he arguably mocks both himself and the idea that he was becoming a foreign-proclaimed grand auteur.”

Commentary

None.

Interview

With director Kiarostami’s son Ahmad Kiarostami.

“He was a storyteller, a story-maker. But he was not a cinephile. He didn’t watch a lot of films. He said, ‘I don’t want to copy other things; I get my inspiration from life, not from cinema.’”

Conversation

Between scholar Jamsheed Akrami and critic Cheshire.

Akrami:

“Kiarostami really wanted to have a more interactive relationship with his audience. He came up with the notion of half-made movies. He said, ‘as a filmmaker, I think my job is to only make half of the movie, and let the audience make the other half.’”

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

55 + 34 =

89

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