Review of Through the Olive Trees (1995) by Jens T — 28 Aug 2011

Abbas Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees is a great intelligent metafilm about a production of a film about the life in a village that ten years ago had a earthquake that killed over 60 people. The boy who is chosen to play the main character, Hossein, an amateur actor, whom' is just an ordinary local boy from the village has asked a girl from the village to marring him more than once. By coincidence she is also set to play against him in a scene where she refuse to call him Mr. Hossein, but rather just Hossein. The film director understands Hossein's obsessions, he also go around talking to other local residents, and once even ask a old woman if he can use her daughter to play in his picture. The Director is a very kind and sympathizing human being.

Through the Olive Trees is a very original and interesting piece of film making. It's a metafilm. We of corse get the car driving scene which is a Kiarostami trade mark which doesn't fail in this movie for sure. The movie contains many takes, more than five times, of one scene as they always does in real life, most because they don't get it right. You might think this would be boring, but it isn't. It's only get you more time to analyze the scene, and learn you all the lines, and feel the directors resignation after each wrong scene. Another great example of Kiarostami's creativity is the ending scene where we see Hossein following the girl and tries to persuade her into marrying him. The camera follows them from the top of a mountain and from the same position where the two of them is just two white dots on the screen far away. A beautiful ending scene. A beautiful hypnotic metafilm. Thumbs up.