Through the Olive Trees | Zire darakhatan zeyton (1994)

Synopsis

This Iranian movie about making movies wavers between a documentary and a fictional drama.

It is the third in director Abbas Kiarostami’s cycle of films that include Where Is My Friend’s Home? and And Life Goes On. Like the others, this film is also set in northern Iran.

An actor playing the director, tells the audience that he will be the only professional actor in the film. The Director selects a young woman, Tahereh, who was recently orphaned in the last earthquake to play the heroine.



Mrs. Shivas, the non-nonsense assistant director keeps the actors on task and focused. She is especially picky about the appearance of Tahereh. Mrs. Shiva is assigned to prepare crew member Hossein to play the new hero.

Trouble ensues because Tahereh has recently rejected Hossein’s advances because he is poor and illiterate. She refuses to speak to him on camera or off.

Hossein talks to the Director who subsequently changes the story; the two are now married. Hossein is a naturally gifted actor, but Tahereh cannot distinguish her role from reality and refuses to speak her lines. The Director changes the story again. -- allmovie guide

Cast:  Mohammad Ali Keshavarz, Farhad Kheradmand, Zarifeh Shiva, Hossein Rezai

This is another great film directed by internationally known Abbas Kiarostami, filmed in the beautiful Northern Iran. The movie focuses on one of the events in Zendegi Edame Darad (1992), and explores the relationship between the movie director, and the actors.

The local actors play a couple who got married right after the earthquake. In reality, the actor is trying to persuade the actress that they should get married. 

This is the art movie in its essence. Every single minute of this movie is complexly detailed. It was considered by the critics a masterpiece but it could not be nominated for the Academy Awards in the 'Foreign Language Category' because of political problems between Iran and USA at the time (but in 99 'Children of Heaven' was nominated).

It was written by Abbas Kiarostama, who also wrote 'The White Balloon' (another great film) and 'Taste of Cherry' (not so good, although it won the Cannes Palm D'or).

This is a must see for any fan of artfilms. Simply fantastic, amazing and everything else, this movie is a 'sea of creativity'. (Sam Tabibnia)

Read about this film