through the olive trees

7/30/2019 Through the Olive Trees

1/3

1

Through the olive trees

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, through the olive trees is undoubtedly one of the

most beautiful Iranian movies that I have ever watched, with a simple yet complex story.

A movie where reality and fiction intertwine so tightly that one can hardly separate the

two; and not that there is a need to do so at all. A movie in which the more real, less

contrived or maybe totally uncontrived scenes are more charming and beautiful than the

planned section; a movie that portrays the elegance and charm of life as a form of art in

itself. A movie that in a way repeats the words of Shakespeare in As you like it:

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages

.

This movie is about a film crew who are shooting in an earthquake stricken area

called Koker, a film within a film. At the beginning of the movie Kiarostami emphasizes

the fact that we are watching a movie, rather than a documentary or a movie which is not

planned and unmediated. He does so by having Keshavarz, a renounced actor to

introduce himself as the director of this film to be shot in the village and then starts

shortly interviewing a group of girls for casting the leading actress of his movie.

From among the crowd he picks a young beautiful girl named Tahereh. On the

other hand, with some trouble, they finally find Hossein as their leading actor, a young,


2/3

2

illiterate, ex-bricklayer. On the first day of shooting, they notice that Tahereh does not

deliver her lines properly, refusing to greet Hossein on the film scene. The director,

Keshavarz, repeatedly asks Tahereh to read her line, but she fails to do so stubbornly. As

Keshavarz later founds out, Hossein had previously asked for her hand in marriage, in the

(supposedly) real life. However he had been rejected repeatedly by the girls parents and

later by her grandmother, on the grounds that he was illiterate and that he didnt own a

house.

The beauty of this movie is that the viewer will have a hard time judging whether

this supposedly real life wooing is real or is it just part of the movie. Even the actors,

Hossein and Tahereh seem to be confusing the two. One example of this is when Tahereh

refuses to respond to Hossein, confusing her real life issue with Hossein, with the movie

being shot and not differentiating the two. Also we see that in another part of the movie

where during the shooting, Hossein is supposed to mention that he has lost 65 relatives in

the earthquake, he keeps messing it up saying 25 instead, since he had allegedly lost 25

people in his real life.

At any rate, Keshavarz keeps both the actors, and indirectly tries to encourage

hosseing in his efforts to convince Tahereh. Hossein takes advantage of every pause

between the takes and every tea break to convince Tahereh that he is a good man with

intelligence and good manners and apologizes for acting the way he does in the movie set.

At the end of the shooting, Tahereh leaves walking home, while other members of

the crew including Hossein were waiting for the minibus. Here, Keshavarz approaches

Hossein and tells him that he is big man, and that he can walk home too as well since

there were not going to be enough seats on the minibus. Once again he indirectly


3/3

3

encourages Hossein to continue with his efforts in convincing the girl. Hossein then

follows Tahereh for a long distance, constantly speaking, asking her to just give him a

sign of how she feels. During all this time Keshavarz follows them clandestinely. In the

last five minutes of the movie we see Tahereh walking past through the olive trees and

further to an open field while Hossein following her; they go so far away that they were

both reduced to little white spots on the screen. Then we see Hossein running back to the

hill.

Deciding whether Hossein got a positive answer or not, is one to be made by the

viewer. However the beauty of this last scene is its simplicity, its artistry, in exhibition of

Hosseins unparalleled persistence, the beautiful scenery and the elegant music. I

personally felt that he finally got a positive response since the music suddenly changed to

a happy, major-scale form.

To sum up, the movie Through the olive trees was among the most beautiful

movies I had ever watched. The interweaving of reality and fiction, and the rather simple

yet honest real off-camera story that was progressing was the highlight of the movie

making it a movie that in my opinion should be present in everyones collection.

through the olive trees

Documents