Among international film directors who revere
Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, it is accepted that his films must be
seen and not just heard about.
That is because his work is so deceptively simple in dialogue and
structure and so achingly complex in the emotional truths that emerge from
his stories. His latest effort, Through The Olive Trees, is proof
positive.
To tell this story is to render it down to mere nothingness,
a self-indulgent director's dream.
To see it is to share a haunting
spirituality that suggests life is still worth living.
This is a
movie-within-a-movie about a director who is filming a drama about the
people in a remote Iranian village devastated by an earthquake.
One of the amateur actors in the production is an illiterate mason in
love with a local girl who has spurned him because he has no education and
no house.
He is astonished when he discovers she was cast as his wife
in the movie. Even though she won't talk to him, except to say her movie
lines, he uses this opportunity to continue to woo her, talking
incessantly while she sits sullen and silent.
The director of the movie-within-the-movie gets caught up in their
strange relationship, helping out the young man, even though this personal
struggle is sabotaging his movie.
Kiarostami shot this in Kroker, a region that was devastated by an
earthquake. He already had made Where Is The Friend's Home there in 1987
and returned after the earthquake to find out what happened to the
children he filmed. His 1991 film And Life Goes On relives that
experiences.
Through The Olive Trees continues the journey, although he has a
prominent Iranian actor, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, play him, "the director",
in the new film.
Reality merges with fiction that was inspired by
reality. As the young couple, Hossein Rezai and Tahereh Ladania, play
parts. But they still bring a lot of their own lives into the improvised
scenes, as do many of the support players.
Ultimately, especially for
Western audiences, Through The Olive Trees is a shared human experience
that allows us to see ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
The banality and the humor and the sadnesses and the little triumphs
are all just the way life is - everywhere. Kiarostami's gift is making
these moments precious.
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