Kiarostami uses minimalist means to say a great deal. And he has taken a most despairing subject and used it to evoke a much more complicated set of responses.
Comment
01/01/00
Taste of Cherry (1997)
81
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:27
Fresh:22
Rotten:5
Average Rating:7.1/10
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Emerging out of an Iranian cinema renaissance, TASTE OF CHERRY is seen by many as its crowning achievement. The story of somber yet intense Mr. Badii and his journey through Tehran, the film... [More]
Starring: Homayon Ershadi, Abdolhossein Bagheri, Afshin Bakhtiari, Ali Moradi
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
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Reviews for Taste of Cherry
A masterwork.
01/01/00
Appropriately languid and uniquely seductive.
07/24/01
I intellectually understand what occurs in the movie; I just can't make the leap into calling it a humanistic treasure about life's big questions.
01/01/00
The talk flows persuasively; the picture pulses with art and humanity.
01/01/00
Top CriticThe #1 U.S. release of 1998: 'A sublime and patient film...[Kiarostami] handles his profound material flawlessly.'
01/10/03
The film is such a lifeless drone that we experience it only as a movie.
01/01/00
Top CriticBoth purely human and ultimately humane, it's an elegant parable about a man who wants his death and his burial too.
01/01/00
Kiarostami is in no rush, but the respect and love he shows for his characters, and the confidence and simplicity of his technique, make Taste of Cherry a satisfying experience.
01/01/00
Top CriticKiarastomi, like no other filmmaker, has a vision of human scale that is simultaneously epic and precisely minuscule.
01/01/00
Top CriticThe lack of information about the central character, which results in a distinct absence of emotional connection, leaves us cold to his fate.
01/01/00
That Kiarostami keeps us guessing and caring to the very end as to how Mr. Badii will answer these questions, and that he accomplishes this concern on our parts with a startling spareness, is nothing less than Divine.
01/07/03
As the film's design becomes clear to us, a quiet spaciousness begins to inhabit it.
01/01/00
Top CriticThe style is understated, the mise-en-scène is spare, but Kiarostami's complex morality tale catches you in its mesmerizing spell.
01/01/00
Kiarostami's insistence on putting a frame around his vision keeps the freedom of interpretation--and the responsibility for it--in the hands of the viewer.
09/01/09
Simplicity often leads to profundity, but A Taste of Cherry (especially the ending) represents lazy cinema that has been overrated by too many.
02/03/02
While it's interminably slow and I still haven't quite figured out why they went with the copout ending, I can't say it's not an interesting film.
07/24/01
Although Ershadi's performance gives a clear sense of Badii's anguish, the screenplay does not give the character enough personal details to make him compelling.
01/01/00
I know from my past experiences with great filmmakers, that sometimes I don't like what I see from them the first time and later on change my mind...
01/01/00
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