Kiarostami in Cleveland
This weekend, the Cinematheque at the Cleveland Institute of Art will pay tribute to the late Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami with a screening of his international breakthrough, Taste of Cherry. This haunting meditation on life and death follows an enigmatic middle-aged man over the course of a day as he drives through the rocky outskirts of Tehran in search of someone to bury him after he commits suicide. His encounters with the passersby he tries to enlist for this grim task, including a Kurdish soldier and a Muslim seminarian, serve as a window into the daily lives of contemporary Iranians. Culminating in one of the most audacious epilogues in modern cinema, Kiarostami’s elegiac yet life-affirming masterwork garnered the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997, becoming the first Iranian film to win the prize.
If you’re in Cleveland, see the film this Sunday on 35 mm, and in the meantime, read Godfrey Cheshire’s liner notes for our release.
