Driving Home a Message Through Film

Brian Forsyth

Contemporary Iranian cinema has faced strict censorship, which has led directors to create films using unique ways of presenting their ideas. Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami has created unique and award-winning films that are revolutionizing Iranian cinema. Two of his films, Ten and Taste of Cherry, involve censored ideas and utilize many different techniques such as symbolism of driving, non-professional actors, and poetic language to create a new genre.

Iranian films are strongly censored by the government. They must not be critical of the government or involve anything that offends the Islam religion. Kiarostami’s films have been banned in Iran for many years. Ten is banned because of the portrayal of a prostitute and the way he shows women, including the removal of a shawl from a woman’s head. Taste of Cherry is banned because of its central theme, suicide. When someone asked Kiarostami if censorship influenced his films, he replied, “'Censorship or not, my work speaks for itself. I also feel that the word censorship sometimes provides a shield behind which we can hide our deficiencies and absolve ourselves of our responsibility towards our work’” (Komodore). Kiarostami feels that directors should create films for themselves before succumbing to censorship that restricts their creativity. Directors should not blame censorship for producing a poor film. Kiarostami will continue to create films the way he envisions them, even if it means they cannot be screened in his native country.

The films Ten and Taste of Cherry convey divergent plots. The film Ten is divided into 10 scenes. Each scene involves a discourse among the female driver (a nameless mother) and each of five passengers: her son, her sister, a praying woman, a prostitute and a bride. The plot is driven by the conflict between the mother and son, and the other passengers fill the other scenes to generate different views about life. Kiarostami develops a new filming style where the entire movie is filmed with two cameras placed on the dashboard; one facing the driver, the other facing the passenger. The other movie, Taste of Cherry, has a darker plot involving a calm man contemplating suicide. The main character, Mr. Badii, drives around Tehran looking for a person to bury him after he commits suicide. He picks up three people: a soldier, an Afghan seminarian, and a professor. The first two refuse to bury Mr. Badii, but the professor agrees. Driving is a pivotal tool in the advancement of the plots of both films. In Taste of Cherry, Mr. Badii drives his car around in circles on an Iranian hillside. Kiarostami uses this circular motion to further a theme of the film as it “circles round and round the idea of suicide” (Caputo). This seemingly subtle effect becomes extremely apparent as the film progresses, with each passenger riding around in the same circle, each time expressing a new perspective on suicide. The road represents the path the driver is taking; whether it is zigzagging or straight, it is used to emphasize the abstract thoughts of Badii (Caputo). The road shows the many different ways of explaining an idea, especially one of suicide, which has myriad different perspectives. Kiarostami uses the car a different way in Ten. Taste of Cherry is composed of many shots of the vehicle with some filming inside the car. Ten is composed entirely from inside the car, never showing a scene from the outside. Kiarostami uses the car as “purely a container of the characters and their dramas” (Caputo). He created a new style of filming relying on two stationary characters, and instead of using the car as a tool to show a physical path in the landscape, he uses it as the setting where the ten conversations occur. Kiarostami shoots cars and driving as an integral part of his films, pioneering a new direction in their use.

The use of non-professional actors in film has created a new hybrid documentary fiction genre. By using inexperienced actors, the films represent people of Iran more accurately and can show the struggles Iranians face every day. Iranian director Bahman Farmanara praises Kiarostami for using non-professional actors, “When a director like Kiarostami becomes world famous, it is the nature of cinema that other filmmakers try to follow the same road” (Dabashi 132). Farmanara acknowledges a new genre being created. Kiarostami produces films that “resemble semi-documentaries, but they are extremely well controlled” (Dabashi 133). Could these “semi-documentary” films become Iran’s “national cinema”? The Iranian film industry seems to follow this trend with many other successful films of the semi-documentary nature. In relation to Kiarostami’s films, the characters are usually exactly who they portray. With the exception of the prostitute in Ten, the citizens play citizens, a soldier plays a soldier, the driver’s child is the driver’s child. These non-professional actors show the disgrace of prostitution by having to find a woman to play the part and never showing her face; the mandatory military conscription where a young soldier plays the soldier; and the views of Islam from the child’s critical attacks about his mother’s divorce. The films act as documentaries in the sense of showing the country’s identity, but also showing works of fiction that are not too farfetched.

The Iranian New Wave describes the film industry from 1969 to the present in Iran. These filmmakers create “innovative art films, which [have] highly political and philosophical tones and poetic language” (Saeed-Vafa). Kiarostami is a leading force in this movement. He has mastered the use of poetic language and philosophical vision. The films play on people’s emotions involving the discussion of suicide, prostitution, and prayer. He uses subtle cues to demonstrate the meaning of some of the emotions, such as the circular motion of the car for suicide and only showing the prostitute when her face is shrouded by the night. The ambiguity of the endings of the films illustrates his philosophical vision. Taste of Cherry ends with Badii in his grave. Lightning flashes three times, illuminating his face with his eyes open; the fourth, they are closed. Ten also has an ambiguous ending. The child argues with his mother in the beginning of the film showing a conflict; while at the end of the movie, the child only says “Take me to grandma’s.” Kiarostami ends the film by allowing open interpretation of a circular argument between the mother and son that will begin again or a conflict that has been accepted and ignored. He addresses this ambiguous ending by saying, “’I do not give answers. I give you information. I present certain things and it’s up to you to conclude what you will’” (Komodore). This statement clearly shows his philosophical ideals about film. The films he produces are designed to make people think for themselves. The open endings allow people to create with his information whatever ideas they want. People can better understand themselves by understanding the way they think.

Classifying Kiarostami’s film into a well defined genre is impossible. He has created a genre unique to himself that many filmmakers respect and imitate. His leadership is pushing Iranian cinema towards a “national cinema”; however, Iran’s cinema is banned in Iran. The “national cinema” will be of the documentary fiction genre. This genre is unique to Iran’s region and shows very little influence from the world. Films similar to Kiarostami’s are hard to find. They come from directors who have experimented with new techniques. These films are not influenced by globalization, but may one day influence the films of others around the world.

Works Cited

Caputo, Rolando. "Five to Ten: Five Reflections on Abbas Kiarostami's 10." Senses of Cinema. Nov. 2003. 01 Mar. 2009 .

Dabashi, Hamid. Close up Iranian cinema, past, present, and future. London: Verso, 2001.

Komodore, Maria. "Great Moments AbbasKiarostami: The Director Behind the Dark Glasses." San Francisco Internation Film Festival The First to Fifty. 2006. San Francisco Film Society. 02 Mar. 2009 .

Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz. "Abbas Kiarostami." Senses of Cinema. May 2002. 03 Mar. 2009 .

Taste of Cherry. Dir. Abbas Kiarostami. DVD. Abbas Kiarostami Productions, 1997.

Ten. Dir. Abbas Kiarostami. DVD. Abbas Kiarostami Productions, 2002.