Cinema Gadfly – Episode 16 – Taste of Cherry

My guest for this month is Neven Mrgan, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1997 drama film Taste of Cherry. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

• Abbas Kiarostami, who directed this film, is probably the most celebrated living Iranian director
• We are both huge fans of films with an existentialist bent, like this one
• Seriously, Criterion, upgrade your crappy DVD of this film already. It’s not even anamorphic for crying out loud!
• If you want to read someone really get it wrong, read Roger Ebert’s thoughts on this film
• A film that won the Palme d’Or in 1997, and was named to the 2012 Sight & Sound greatest films of all time list
• Martin Scorsese is also a huge fan of Kiarostami
• I assume we’re the only podcast to ever compare this film to Disney’s Wall-E, but I suppose you never know
• This film reminds me of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy, especially Three Colors: Red
• When we said Apéritif we clearly meant Digestif. Clearly
• Some of Kiarostami’s other well-known films include Close-Up, Certified Copy, and Like Someone in Love. The last two were made in Italy and Japan respectively
• I seriously can’t recommend Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting highly enough. Especially his episode on Ensemble Staging, as it relates indirectly to our conversation about what an American remake might do to ruin this film

Buy the film from Amazon
Watch the film on Hulu