Mark Heide
04-05-2003, 11:57 PM
Taste Of Cherry was written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami and won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. It is a film about the preciousness of life through the world we experience from our senses. The plot is about a middle-aged Iranian named Badii who cruises the city of Tehran's outskirts trying to find a stranger who will help him commit suicide. He does not want the stranger to actually be an accomplice to his death, but merely return the next day and rescue him if his attempt at suicide fails, or bury him if he succeeds. The story is told from the point of view of each stranger that Badii picks up. I highly recommend this film because it will make you think about it days after watching it. You can probably rent this film from a rental outlet with a good foreign film section or buy it.
The DVD edition from The Criterion Collection includes an interview with Kiarostami including censorship as one of the topics. Here's an excerpt from that interview:
"The problem of censorship has always existed. Especially, when I'm outside of Iran, usually the first or second question asked has to do with censorship. In the West, when I'm asked about censorship in Iran, I get offended. They think we are some Third World country with some sort of incredible censorship and we work under terrible conditions. But when I think about it, I realize that we've always had to face the problem of censorship not just as filmmakers, but even as citizens of Iran, we've always had censorship. It starts in our families when we can't speak our minds because our parents decide what's right and wrong for us."
"With respect to films or art in general, it's true that art is born of difficult or unfavorable circumstances for the artist, I say this very cautiously, especially outside of Iran, because I think that I might be justifying restrictions, or saying that censorship is not a problem. People might think that I say those things out of fear, or perhaps because of a favorable attitude towards my country or government. Also, when I leave the country I really don't want to hear negative things about it. I think even if we have censorship in Iran, we should deal with it ourselves. As my father used to say, if your head breaks, it better break in your own hat. We shouldn't talk about it anywhere else because there's no advantage in it – Nobody can untie our knots or solve our problems. For that reason, I never speak about censorship outside of Iran especially for foreign reporters. Often I ask them: Don't you have your own censorship?"
Go see the film.
Mark
The DVD edition from The Criterion Collection includes an interview with Kiarostami including censorship as one of the topics. Here's an excerpt from that interview:
"The problem of censorship has always existed. Especially, when I'm outside of Iran, usually the first or second question asked has to do with censorship. In the West, when I'm asked about censorship in Iran, I get offended. They think we are some Third World country with some sort of incredible censorship and we work under terrible conditions. But when I think about it, I realize that we've always had to face the problem of censorship not just as filmmakers, but even as citizens of Iran, we've always had censorship. It starts in our families when we can't speak our minds because our parents decide what's right and wrong for us."
"With respect to films or art in general, it's true that art is born of difficult or unfavorable circumstances for the artist, I say this very cautiously, especially outside of Iran, because I think that I might be justifying restrictions, or saying that censorship is not a problem. People might think that I say those things out of fear, or perhaps because of a favorable attitude towards my country or government. Also, when I leave the country I really don't want to hear negative things about it. I think even if we have censorship in Iran, we should deal with it ourselves. As my father used to say, if your head breaks, it better break in your own hat. We shouldn't talk about it anywhere else because there's no advantage in it – Nobody can untie our knots or solve our problems. For that reason, I never speak about censorship outside of Iran especially for foreign reporters. Often I ask them: Don't you have your own censorship?"
Go see the film.
Mark