By: KEVIN JOLLY
Staff Writer
Taste of Cherry is an Iranian film from 1997 which is available on HBO Max for streaming. The film’s story takes place over one evening of a man driving around the hills of Iran and discussing his plans of suicide with them. The film is very relaxed and kinda slow, but if you go in expecting a more chill experience, it makes for a great film.
The film’s plot, without spoilers, in summary, is a man named Badii driving in his Rove Ranger through the outskirts of Tehran, pitching his plan of suicide to various people who all have different perspectives which provide unique discussions with each person. Badii’s thought process is that he’s uncertain about his commitment to actually going through with the act, so his plan requires another person to check after a certain time and if he’s dead, to bury him, or to wake him up if he didn’t actually go through. The main substance of the film as I said, is Badii’s deep philosophical conversations with various people from different lives and trying to convince them to take money in exchange for helping in his plan.
The filmmaking is what ties this whole film together through its uniqueness. The film takes place over one single evening and the film starts from the beginning of the evening and doesn’t skip forward in time until the sun sets. That means the hour-and-a-half film shows in real-time, the length of an evening, and better emulates an actual day. But it also means Badii’s entire journey through Tehran is documented without skipping over, which includes his driving from place to place, his slower walks along the hills, and his lengthy conversations in full. But the physical settings and locations of the film are spread out so that the pacing holds steady. Because of the short runtime, this film, although slow-paced, is still accessible to most.
There’s also something to appreciate about the cultural crossings of Iran. Despite the film not being directly about Iranian culture or anything, the film’s enthusiasm to showcase an entire evening of contextualizing information we learn from different characters’ backstories. Taste of Cherry can serve as kind of a small window into a country that is usually considered an enemy. But I wouldn’t suggest mistaking the film for anything like a documentary, because the film simply demonstrates different types of people in Iran’s lives, and the point isn’t to teach about Iranian culture.