Through the Olive Trees (1994)
(Zire darakhatan zeyton)
Country: IR/FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Zarifeh Shiva, Hossein Rezai, Tahereh Ladanian
Synopsis:
An actor plays a film director returning to Koker, the site of the earlier Where is the Friend's Home?, after an earthquake has ravaged the region and decimated the population. He wants to film a story of a young couple who married but a few days after the disaster, despite the fact that their families were both affected by loss of life, and having replaced the young man with his camp attendant discovers that he in turn has been paying court to the 'leading lady', who refuses so much as to speak to him because he is illiterate and she has higher education and aspirations.
Review:
Concluding part of a trilogy based around Koker and the earthquake, the central being Life and Nothing More; indeed the two boys from the first film are seen here supplying potted plants for the set! Just as the impetus for the second film had been to find these two, though other discoveries took their place, so here Kiarostami lays himself totally open to the accidents of film making by becoming distracted from the construction of the story that originally inspired him, and which is itself self-consciously 'constructed' by having an actor playing the director shoot endless retakes of the same scenes against the same set, to spend far more time focusing on the plight of the dejected Hossein. At one point it seems as though there might even be hope for him, and that it might just be the grandmother's prejudices that sway the daughter, but what we have seen of the daughter's wilfulness from the beginning tends to militate against that, and Hossein's dogged pursuit and reasonable demands for a clear answer are treated with utter indifference. The long final shot from a hilltop, the same one apparently that figured in Where Is the Friend's Home?, except that there is no village at the bottom, shows Hossein pursue Tahereh through a copse of trees and across a field before catching up with her, circling her, for a time joining her, before coming back. We never see his face, and can only guess at the outcome, in other words this is a typically ambiguous Kiarostami finish (cf. Certified Copy).
(Zire darakhatan zeyton)
Country: IR/FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Zarifeh Shiva, Hossein Rezai, Tahereh Ladanian
Synopsis:
An actor plays a film director returning to Koker, the site of the earlier Where is the Friend's Home?, after an earthquake has ravaged the region and decimated the population. He wants to film a story of a young couple who married but a few days after the disaster, despite the fact that their families were both affected by loss of life, and having replaced the young man with his camp attendant discovers that he in turn has been paying court to the 'leading lady', who refuses so much as to speak to him because he is illiterate and she has higher education and aspirations.
Review:
Concluding part of a trilogy based around Koker and the earthquake, the central being Life and Nothing More; indeed the two boys from the first film are seen here supplying potted plants for the set! Just as the impetus for the second film had been to find these two, though other discoveries took their place, so here Kiarostami lays himself totally open to the accidents of film making by becoming distracted from the construction of the story that originally inspired him, and which is itself self-consciously 'constructed' by having an actor playing the director shoot endless retakes of the same scenes against the same set, to spend far more time focusing on the plight of the dejected Hossein. At one point it seems as though there might even be hope for him, and that it might just be the grandmother's prejudices that sway the daughter, but what we have seen of the daughter's wilfulness from the beginning tends to militate against that, and Hossein's dogged pursuit and reasonable demands for a clear answer are treated with utter indifference. The long final shot from a hilltop, the same one apparently that figured in Where Is the Friend's Home?, except that there is no village at the bottom, shows Hossein pursue Tahereh through a copse of trees and across a field before catching up with her, circling her, for a time joining her, before coming back. We never see his face, and can only guess at the outcome, in other words this is a typically ambiguous Kiarostami finish (cf. Certified Copy).
(Zire darakhatan zeyton)
Country: IR/FR
Technical: col 103m
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Zarifeh Shiva, Hossein Rezai, Tahereh Ladanian
Synopsis:
An actor plays a film director returning to Koker, the site of the earlier Where is the Friend's Home?, after an earthquake has ravaged the region and decimated the population. He wants to film a story of a young couple who married but a few days after the disaster, despite the fact that their families were both affected by loss of life, and having replaced the young man with his camp attendant discovers that he in turn has been paying court to the 'leading lady', who refuses so much as to speak to him because he is illiterate and she has higher education and aspirations.
Review:
Concluding part of a trilogy based around Koker and the earthquake, the central being Life and Nothing More; indeed the two boys from the first film are seen here supplying potted plants for the set! Just as the impetus for the second film had been to find these two, though other discoveries took their place, so here Kiarostami lays himself totally open to the accidents of film making by becoming distracted from the construction of the story that originally inspired him, and which is itself self-consciously 'constructed' by having an actor playing the director shoot endless retakes of the same scenes against the same set, to spend far more time focusing on the plight of the dejected Hossein. At one point it seems as though there might even be hope for him, and that it might just be the grandmother's prejudices that sway the daughter, but what we have seen of the daughter's wilfulness from the beginning tends to militate against that, and Hossein's dogged pursuit and reasonable demands for a clear answer are treated with utter indifference. The long final shot from a hilltop, the same one apparently that figured in Where Is the Friend's Home?, except that there is no village at the bottom, shows Hossein pursue Tahereh through a copse of trees and across a field before catching up with her, circling her, for a time joining her, before coming back. We never see his face, and can only guess at the outcome, in other words this is a typically ambiguous Kiarostami finish (cf. Certified Copy).