‘Taste of Cherry’: how Abbas Kiarostami uses cars as a narrative device

Posted On March 9, 2025March 9, 2025

Abbas Kiarostami is a poet of everyday moments that most people deem inconsequential, finding power in the subtle ebbs and flows of seemingly simplistic stories that evolve into delicately powerful fables.

Each film is overflowing with a rare kind of empathy that is so evasive in the modern world, finding compassion for people who are often overlooked and ignored, whether it be a small child who is desperately trying to communicate the urgency of his quest to return his friend’s notebook or a middle-aged man who is about to end his life. Kiarostami’s stories are a wakeup call to the lost wonders of being alive and extraordinary ordinary, with lush imagery, slow and evocative conversations and a deeply philosophical undercurrent that immerses you in a bubble of introspection, marvelling at the hidden miracles that exist quietly, all around us.

But perhaps more than anything, the director has become known for blurring the line between fantasy and reality, leaving our minds lingering over narratives that we thought were entirely imagined but somehow end in our immediate reality, creating a sharp commentary on our detachment from humanity and the power of compassion by merging both worlds together. While this is a common thread in many of his films, from the mesmerising tangle of deceit and truth in Certified Copy to the metatextual layers of Life and Nothing More, there is one movie in which Kiarostami overtly breaks the fourth wall between the process of creating and the film itself, something that he does through one particular framing device.

Taste of Cherry is perhaps the most ambiguous and evasive from Kiarostami’s body of work, with his other projects having a distinct undertone of optimism and hope that isn’t obviously present in his story about a man on a quest to end his life, searching for the perfect accomplice to do so in a country where suicide is illegal.

Many of Kiarostami’s films are about awakening us to the beauty of the world around us, taking us on a visceral journey that reinvigorates our soul through the way a branch moves in the breeze, sunlight hits a window or the way a child fiercely attempts to protect his friend from injustice. We become captivated by details that would normally be considered mundane, taking on a new and magical quality through Kiarostami’s perspective, dressing everything in a hypnotical spell that touches some hidden fibre of your being.

But in Taste of Cherry, the main character, Mr Badii, mostly remains locked inside the confines of his car, a witness to the wonders of the world but still detached. This echoes the underlying sentiment of the film, with Kiarostami ultimately presenting an argument about whether it is better to live or die, and if so, what is it that ties us to live on earth? For Mr Badii, it is not the stark beauty of the dusty roads he drives along, the serendipitous connections he forms with complete strangers on his quest or the breathtaking landscape that he wishes to bury his body.

Despite the many profoundly good things that are glaringly obvious to us as viewers, none of them is enough to tether him to this earth, carrying an immense pain that is never revealed to us, only that it is so unimaginably great that he cannot possibly live for another day. Throughout all of his interactions, Mr Badii and his pains remain unknowable, maintaining a sense of mystery and secrecy. Kiarostami achieves this through the use of one narrative device—the car.

In films like Life and Nothing More, Certified Copy and Taste of Cherry, the characters are often seen driving around and having long conversations, stopping every now and then for a conversation or encounter that takes place outside the car, usually in a stunning location that emphasises the natural beauty of the environment. Kiarostami explores the details that make life worth living by contrasting an intensely functional and impersonal object with the wonderful landscape around them, something that is interwoven between the threads of fantasy and reality that mark his films.

The natural world is akin to something otherwordly and ethereal, something that is accompanied by life-affirming and enriching interactions that happen outside of the car, hammering in our detachment from the power of everything that lies immediately within our reach. However, the scenes that take place inside a car operate more within the realm of reality, with the characters being faced with issues that plague them as they search for answers, hope and relief, either from a natural disaster, failed relationship or life itself.

In Taste of Cherry, Mr Badii remains inside his car for almost the entire duration of the film, with a beautiful right outside of his window, but he is unable to truly see or comprehend its beauty. He is blinded by his own pain and unable to see anything outside of it. Through his use of the car as a narrative device in this film, he exaggerates Mr Badii’s sense of isolation and hopelessness, with ‘the taste of cherry’, a metaphor for the meaning of life itself, blurring past him in the background, facing determinedly forwards without stopping to observe the landscape that drifts just over his shoulder.

We mostly see this landscape through the windows of the car itself, a view that is distorted by this obtrusive metallic structure, unable to truly soak in the beauty of what lies around it. Every now and then, the camera drifts about the car, and we are able to see this spectacular view, allowing the audience to have a ‘taste of cherry’, but not Mr Badii.

After driving back and forth on the same road, finally arriving at his ultimate destination – the spot he has chosen for his body to be buried – Mr Badii takes some sleeping pills and lies in the dirt, looking up at the sky, ready to embrace death. Kiarostami wants us to see the bigger picture, something that Mr Badii is unable to see for most of the film. We notice the stark irony of choosing to end your life in a place that seems impossible not to affirm your desire to keep living.

Everyone needs their own taste of cherry, and as the film ends, we see footage from the production itself. It slowly dawns on us that perhaps, this movie was Kiarostami’s own taste of cherry, a reason to keep living, a homage to the country he so clearly adores, finding beauty in every rock, tree and speck of dust. We aren’t sure whether Mr Badii is awakened to this bigger picture, but as he lies in what he intends to be his final resting spot, staring up at the glittering stars above him, finally observing the world from outside of his car, we wonder whether this will be enough to awaken him to the joys of being alive.

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