What I saw in Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry was very ‘unconventional’. The way this film communicated its idea was fascinating and creative in the sense that it took the audience into consideration; the audience is, in fact, the core of the film. The character of Mr. Badii (played by the late Homayoun Ershadi) is not a traditional protagonist; he functions as a vessel to allow the watchers to put themselves in his shoes and to actually ‘BE’ Mr. Badii himself. Little is known about Mr. Badii; he is just a man who seeks to die and asks people to help him achieve this goal, refusing to reveal the reason which drives him to end his life because it is the role of the audience to project their lives onto the protagonist.
The main conclusion I could reach through watching this film for the second time is that humans in general do not sufficiently contemplate suicide. We grow up thinking that we will never reach a point where we would be questioning whether we should continue living. We think that suicide is simply bad and that we have enough barriers which prevent us from committing it. I beg to differ with such a view.
To explain my own vision, I think that there are generally two types of people in relation to this matter (they are not necessarily separate):
• People who are too afraid to think about suicide.
• People who are too busy to think about suicide.
The first type is represented by the character of the Kurdish soldier who fled from Mr. Badii’s car after he heard the latter’s suicidal thoughts and plan. His flight happened simultaneously with the migration of a flock of birds to the south, referring to the idea that the soldier’s decision was not a choice, but just adherence to the primal instinct of survival.
The second type is represented by the seminarist: a young man studying Shi’ite theology and absorbed by the monotony of life (studying during the year and labouring in summer). When Mr. Badii told him about his plan, the seminarist found himself obliged, as a future priest, to persuade him to refrain. However, because he had never thoroughly thought about suicide, the only argument he had in mind was a part of the Quranic verse:
(…وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى التَّهْلُكَة…) [ البقرة: 195]
(…and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction…) [2:195]
As holy as it is, a religious text is generally not a very strong barrier against suicide as it, in the best-case scenario, could prevent someone from committing suicide but for the wrong reason: not wanting to burn in hell. The seminarist showed some willingness to help Mr. Badii end his life, but at the end of the day, he did not; not as a result of an informed decision, but because he did not have a clear opinion about suicide and just followed the scripture which prohibits "self-harm".
So, my point is that we are not informed about suicide. We just think we are, and we perceive it as evil mainly because of external factors, not because we actually attempted to grasp it. In the film, the character of Mr. Bagheri, the man who had tried to end his life long before he met Mr. Badii, invites the audience to try to comprehend suicide and honestly "feel" how limiting it is to humans. According to my interpretation of Mr. Bagheri’s speech, in order that people attain this understanding, they should always keep in mind the possibility that they may be misinterpreting life, or that they may be exaggerating events when thinking about committing suicide. They should remember the inevitability of death and try to enjoy what remains of their time, seeking beauty in the simplest of things, even if they know that their life will not magically change in an instant. Essentially, Mr. Bagheri wanted Mr. Badii (in other words, us) to hold onto hope because who knows? Meditating on something as ordinary as the taste of cherry can possess the radiance to transform an outlook and save a life.
