Through the Olive Trees (1994) User Reviews (35)

Third Remove

[Krustallos · 8/10 · 10 May 2005]

First thing: this is the third part in a trilogy. You really need to see "Where is the Friend's House" & "And Life Goes On" first if you want to fully understand this. In short, this is a film about a man making a film of his own journey in search of actors in a film he made earlier. Once you know that, it's not in the least slow or simple, it's a hall of mirrors, as another commentator put it. Frames within frames within frames.

Second thing: Jean-Luc Godard praised Kiarostami's early films, but then felt he'd become too influenced by the international art movie tradition. I don't know if this is a film he liked or disliked, but it sure has a lot of Godard's influence in it - from the director interviewing sundry characters through the conflation of documentary and fiction elements to the use of music, it's like Godard crossed with Satyajit Ray. Not that that's a bad thing.

I don't know if Kiarostami is as original or as striking as some maintain - in many ways this is "Day for Night" transplanted to the Iranian countryside - but it's very watchable, often very funny and the landscape is beautiful.

There also seems to be (in the Iranian context) a subversive subtext to these films. Tradition is held up as hidebound and stupid (the adults in "Where is the Friend's House", the grandmother in this film) while the young are seen improvising their own lives and creating hope in the face of catastrophe. I can't imagine that's too popular with the mullahs, and indeed it seems that Kiarostami has been unable to get a film released in Iran in a decade.

Well worth a view, and it may even inspire you to get out into the world with a digital video camera, but do see the other films (and probably also "Homework") first.

meaning hidden in small gestures of daily life

[gronvius · 9/10 · 22 August 2000]

I saw the movie while on vacation in Sweden. Just clicking through TV channels, I stopped on this movie accidentally, initially not paying much attention to it. But the images started to attract me, finally they got hold of me. The realism of everyday life with some strange air of poetic aura was fascinating. The action just floats like a river, no big happenings but pictures are dense, close to skin, close to feelings. The people dreams pour out into daily life. The shaky balance between reality and a dream culminates in the last sequence and we hope for an answer, which is not disclosed but we are left to search it in our imagination and in our dreams evoked by this wonderful movie. Maybe longing for an answer is all what is possible.

Abbas made legendary films

[alansabljakovic-39044 · 7/10 · 6 March 2020]

The last one in the Koker trilogy but not forgotten. This one could only be described by legendary Benoit Blanck and this is how he would describe it: 'We must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a doughnut hole, but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not holed at all!'

A bold statement of love and color, a poem

[hooshi36_1999 · 3 September 2000]

This epoch-making poem opens with a film crew trying to cast for a movie in a provincial village, in the aftermath of A DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE which has claimed many, many lives. We then are shown that the remaining people are trying to rebuild their lives, picking up bits and pieces of the past, but with an eye to the future.example of these people are the boy and the girl who are selected to play the protagonists of the melodrama to be made. The crew's interest interest in these people is limited to their role and usefulness for director's vision of the film, and no more. But-and this is a crucial BUT-the boy and the girl have their own agenda, and don't care very much for the screenplay dictated by the director (for instance repeated takes of the tea-serving scene): The girl wants to wear colorful and jolly dress, and the boy wants to be able to love her. Eventually, the boy follws the girl into the magnificent ending shot of the expanse of the olive groves, and into the ubncertain but potentially hopeful future. Will life, love and color be able to vanquish darkness and death? Will the boy and the girl find the courage and and power to fire the crew, the director, the casting agent , down to the ticket-vendor and become subjects of their own life and destiny? ... This is to be continued.........

no need to see the first two films in the trilogy

[meleftheriou-1 · 10/10 · 12 December 2005]

I'd just like to disagree with those who suggest this film may not be accessible to people who have not seen the first two films in the trilogy. I haven't, but have not been as bewitched by a film since I saw Aggelopoulos' Travelling Players for the first time. My heart responded, the hairs on the back of my neck responded, my being responded. No matter if my brain wasn't fully au fait with what came before. Superb doesn't begin to cover it. How he captured these (non)performances from his actors is beyond me: perhaps, unfamiliar with the conventions of film-making, they were uniquely equipped to sidestep them.

Michael

Love behind the trees

[N_Sgo · 10/10 · 27 September 2007]

This film is a masterpiece, and can easily be seen and understood without the two previous films.

It revolves around a scene in which Hussein, a very low-class, insecure person, has to play the groom of Taheren, the girl whom he loves in real life. The fictive scene in which they are married, and Hussein's dreams and hopes of marrying her, mesh together and develop as the film goes on. It's all very moving, sensitive, even mesmerizing.

There is a constant reference to something or someone 'behind the trees,' perhaps a pointer at something beyond the film's scope and ability of description. In the end, the stubborn and proud Taheren also disappears behind the trees, and Hussein is left standing alone.

A very sensitive and moving film. Hussein's character, always dreaming and fantasizing about things that cannot be, is touching and endearing. The issue of fiction vs. reality, imagination vs. real life, is dealt with great wisdom and subtlety. One of Kiarostami's best.

Another extraordinary Kiarostami movie

[Red-125 · 10/10 · 9 May 2020]

Reviewer's Note: The Iranian movie Zire darakhatan zeyton (1994) was shown in the U.S. with the title Through the Olive Trees. The film was written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami.

The movie is the third of a series of films entitled "The Koker Trilogy." Koker is a small village 200 miles northwest of Tehran. No one outside Iran would know anything about Koker, except for Kiarostami's films. He used Koker as the setting for the first film in the trilogy-Where is the Friend's House? (1987). (This is an amazing movie, with an IMDb rating of 8.1.) However, Koker was still just an obscure village.

Koker is now famous because of a horrible tragedy that took place in the region on June 21, 1990. A devastating earthquake destroyed Koker and many surrounding villages. The loss of life was immense--about 50,000 people died, including 20,000 children. Almost all the buildings were destroyed. Kiarostami directed two more films about Koker. Now, the location is well known to Iranians and cinephiles.

In real life, director Kiarostami and his son traveled to Koker five days after the earthquake occurred. They wanted to find out if the two brothers who starred in the first film had survived the earthquake. Kiarostami turned his trip into a movie. That film was And Life Goes On (1992). He found that despite the immense grief felt by the local people, life did, indeed, go on.

Through the Olive Trees stars Mohamad Ali Keshavarz as The Film Director. He's the only professional actor in any of the three movies. As is usual for Kiarostami, the other actors are local amateurs. Farhad Kheradmand plays Farhad. He was also in And Life Goes On. Zarifeh Shiva portrays Mrs. Shiva, who is the director's assistant.

In this film, Kiarostami has made a movie about making a movie. The movie they are making is And Life Goes On. There's no shortage of movies about making movies. However, I've never seen a movie about making a movie that already exists. It's a brilliant concept, because we can recognize segments of And Life Goes On as they appear in Through the Olive Trees.

However, Through the Olive Trees is really about the relationship of two young people. Hossein Rezai portrays Hossein, who had a four-minute, but important, segment in And Life Goes On. In that segment, he tells us that he and his wife were married the day after the earthquake. They were engaged, the wedding had been planned, and they went ahead with it. This demonstrated a key element of And Life Goes On--the couple embodied the human desire to pick up the pieces and move forward with life, and with replacing death with new life.

In this movie, we learn that Hossain has fallen in love with the woman who played the young wife--Tahereh. However, Tahereh (portrayed by Tahereh Ladanian) apparently wants nothing to do with Hossain. Tahereh lost both of her parents in the earthquake, so she now lives with her grandmother. Her grandmother absolutely rejects Hossain because he's illiterate and doesn't own a house. That makes sense, except that Hossain is intelligent and ambitious, and truly loves the young woman.

So, what we have is a plot within a movie about making a movie. It sounds confusing, but it works.

Kiarostami is famous for using panoramic long shots, and this is what we see at the end of the film. The closing long shot is amazing and unforgettable, but ambiguous.

This is an amazing movie. It has an extremely high IMDb rating of 7.8. I rated it 10. It worked well enough on the small screen, but of course it would be better in a theater. We saw it on a Criterion DVD, sold with the other two movies in the trilogy. The films may be available separately, which would be OK. However, the Criterion edition has many video extras, along with a written essay by noted film critic Godfrey Cheshire.

I would say that the three trilogy movies are all must-see films if you love great international cinema. Find them and watch them.

IMPORTANT: The trilogy should be seen in order of production: Where is the Friend's House? then, And Life Goes On, then, Through the Olive Trees. The movies will each work separately, but they won't work as well if seen out of that order.

Released in the West before Iranian film became fashionable.

[threeJane · 10/10 · 2 May 2002]

An Iranian construction worker/actor wants to marry a woman orphaned by the earthquake. But she is so much richer than she is. "So what?", he tells the director (of a film within the film). "If short men only married short women they would have short children and no-one would be able to reach the top of the cupboard."

A film packed with Kiarostami minutiae on class and gender (and of course literacy), including exquisite scenes about forgotten geraniums and missing socks.

A very subtle movie wrapped and unfolded like breaking an onion

[Bad-Good-Great · 7/10 · 10 November 2019]

Muti-layered screenplay with a storyline inside a storyline. It involved a movie making process, a hopeless romance from one of the temporary recruit actor, an illiterate, his sincere but helpless and fruitless quest for a local high school young woman. The shifting between the movie making and the quest for love was so subtle, even sometimes difficult to separate, but it's seamlessly done. There were repeated scene after scene with the same dialog that the director insisted to be exactly as the script, but sometimes, we saw the illiterate actor pointed out to him his ignorance of the local traditions and etiquette, making the literates also became illiterates.

We also saw how the Iranian males' disorganized bad habits, their non-stop blabbering, blah, blah and blah. But as most of the Iranian movies, once the localities were in the countryside, the beauty of this country is just beyond any word could describe. I don't know why Iran was demonized nowadays, but the Iranian people, especially those who live in the countryside, most of them are wonderful people, kind, peaceful and fully accept and recognize their fates and lives, and they are so resilient and tough when facing poverty, natural disasters and catastrophes. They are the real Muslims, because they all have a peaceful mind and great heart.

Life, love and rebuilding

[moviesknight · 8/10 · 31 January 2022]

I like the work Abbas Kiarostami had done. He focusses on things which we ignore, the common aspects of life, only we have have the eyes we can see much more. He does this again and again. It is in these moments where actually life happens which we humans tend to igmore so often that it is cruel.

As for the ending, it kind of is open, but how fast the boy ran at the end, I tend believe it is because of the happiness. But it is really upto you how you percieve this, as you are the man at the mountain who saw this, not knowing the conversations.

Miles Away from the Friend's House

[ThurstonHunger · 6/10 · 16 April 2023]

Once we get past the shadow of the shadow aspect of the film, what sort of story or stories lies beneath.

There is a sort of "love story" but it had zero chemistry for me, indeed it's dominant aspect was a sort of oppression. Hossein's wooing of Tahereh, in my eyes at least, lacked even a hint of frisson. The balcony scene is perhaps pivotal, and maybe I missed a key element (that she drunk the tea when he was gone). Instead all I could rely on was Hossein's recalling eye-contact with Tahereh before the earthquake.

There is also the oppression of the film-maker, despite the fact that it is his film (well the film within the film after the film). But from forcing Tahereh to wear a "peasant dress" (yes I am limited by an English translation, I suspect the Farsi phrase might have been less class-critical.

A misguided modern take could be that this film is a subtle call for women's rights in Iran, but i know that is not the case. I do think something about the countryside is what Kiarostami wanted to capture, but it gets eclipsed for me by the movie-mirroring-movie aspect. At one point we have all three Kiarostami's in one shot...

As a movie mediating upon cinema it can be though provoking, but for the actual story within this miles away from the Friend's House for me.

A Movie about making a movie but not like a Documentary but feels like a complete Movie itself.

[yadavanita-18093 · 8/10 · 24 October 2020]

Abbas Kiarostami's movies along the likes of Mr.Yasujiro Ozu and Edward yang are just like a calm stream of river that keeps on flowing eternally providing neverending relief, life and peace. If you have enough patience and interest these movies will never bore you, and you could even watch them for many hours if their runtime was even mkre, but at last provide you with a feelgood experience as their movies are so close to our everyday reality that they feel like the stories in them could happen anywhere around us in any part of the world. Third part of Abbas kiarostami's Koker trilogy providing behind the scenes outlook to "And life goes on...(1992)", almost feels like a complete story in itself about 2 youngsters trying hard to find eachother in all the tension surrounding, after the 1990 earthquake. The minimalistic director Abbas kiarostami does wonders in almost his every movie that many action directors could not, a true genius.

A film about common struggles of filmmaking.

[Kdosda_Hegen · 7/10 · 9 May 2021]

It's so relatable and funny. The director in the film was clearly fed-up of all what's been happening during the production. Reminds me a lot of the stuff I've seen when I was once playing in a school play.

Through the Olive Trees

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 31 May 2018]

I found this Iranian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was an easy to remember title, but I didn't else about it, but critics gave it positive reviews, so I hoped it would be good, directed by Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us). Basically Hossein (Hossein Rezai) is a local stonemason who has become an actor, filming on location for the movie Zendegi Edame Darad (And Life Goes On). Outside the film set, Hossein makes a marriage proposal to his leading lady, a student named Tahereh (Tahereh Ladanian), she was orphaned by an earthquake. Hossein is poor and illiterate, because of this the girl's family are insulted by his proposal, and the girl avoids him as a result. Even during filming, she continues to evade him, she also seems to have trouble grasping the difference her role in the film and her real-life self. Things get more complicated as Hossein continues to pursue the affections of the young actress while the filming goes on, the Film Director (Mohamad Ali Keshavarz) learns about this and tries to advise him what to do. The girl manages to finish the scene while Hossein attempts to woo her, she departs, and Hossein runs after her. In the final scene, at a great distance, the girl finally gives an answer to Hossein, we are left with him running through a green field, and back through the olive trees, and we never know what the response is given by the girl. The documentary style of filming is interesting, the director pokes fun at the filmmaking process, with memorable take after take sequences of the lead actor going up and down a flight of stairs and messing up a line, this film blurs the lines between life and art, and it has some good sights of Iran's northlands, a reasonable drama. Worth watching!

Graceful heartfelt thanks for the empathy.

[mrmumps · 29 April 2001]

Found this film to easily engage my heart without burdening my head with too much technique. Funny, sad, the two sides of the ever encompassing cinema coin. An seemingly effortless exploration of the relationships of men and women, tradition and experience, the old and the somewhat new. And what a beautiful rhythmic last sequence, one of the best of all my moviegoing history.

Without a doubt, it is a fundamental film in the history of contemporary cinema.

[LilianaDiazCastillo · 10/10 · 23 February 2024]

Through the Olive Trees is the wonderful work that led me to discover the great Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami. It is a film full of poetry, it is subtle, it is profound, it is charged with the rural social context of his country of origin and it has shades of humour.

For me it is one of his best works because it highlights his great work with non-professional actors.

The majestic composition of the shots and the internal timing of each one of them, makes the film a lesson in cinema for anyone.

It is also a mise en abyme of filmmaking itself.

Without a doubt, it is a fundamental film in the history of contemporary cinema.

A Beautiful Final of Koker Trilogy

[aipsun · 9/10 · 31 December 2023]

Through the Olive Trees is the final film in the "Koker Trilogy" which began with Where's the Friend's Home? (1987) and continued with And Life Goes On (1992). Similar to the two previous films in this trilogy, Abbas Kiarostami presents a slice of life story that tells about the life of village people, without significant conflict, but has a meaning that can penetrate the minds of the audience. Kiarostami proves his love for cinema by presenting a beautiful story about humans which this time happens behind a film production, ordinary people with their daily lives and without forgetting to show the visuals of rural Iran - it's as if there is a universe of its own, isn't it? Kiarostami is an expert and he knows which sides can be explored to depict his vision. Through the Olive Trees is the best conclusion to a trilogy that succeeds in blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

Olive trees

[M0n0_bogdan · 8/10 · 27 February 2023]

After Kiarostami's personal journey through an earthquake-stricken country to find a kid he worked on in a previous film, he now adds another meta-textual layer under the entire thing, thus concluding his trilogy. I liked this more than Life, and Nothing More...mainly because of how interesting was the last third of the film.

We can talk for hours about the text and context of the film, what impact it has on the viewer if we take all three films as one...or just break down each so we can make another film. But for me it was a personal film of Abbas and his journey through the art of cinema in Iran. It's all linked to the medium, any way you take it.

It's also a view of how a director is like a god, in a sense that throughout the three film he guides people on what to say and how to say it, even to the point that they change the way they are as people, not only as actors. The last scene is exactly that, the director gave this confidence to the actor, and as another level the unseen power, the true director that is behind the camera we don't see, directs the director and the actors in another sub-conscience level.

It's has a bunch of layers and those layers have other layers.

Engaging as an experiment but as for love, I'm not so sure

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 29 May 2022]

My first question is... did Abbas Kiarostami cast Keshavaraz because he looks like the spitting image of Francis Ford Coppola in the 1990s at the time? Maybe coincidence, but I can't not see it now.

This is an interesting film that I wish I could connect to more; on the blu ray there's an interview between an Iranian film professor (actually he taught at my old school WPU but that's neither here nor there) and Godfrey Cheshire where they tall about all three films and with this one they mention Olive Trees got criticized for how Kiarostami is showing this one scene - really it's a few different shots and parts of the same scene (one that is supposed to be a part of And Life Goes On even though it's technically not in that film at all, part of the "Lies to get at the Truth" method the director had) - but that's not where I'd be so critical.

I find the multiple takes aspect involving on a pure experimental level as far as how a director who I suspect Kiarostami wrote and cast with Keshavaraz to be very unlike him - the Economist from "Life" seems more to what I imagine Kiarostami was like as far as someone who would let a scene go on and improvise - as he is very taciturn and very much into this being how the scene should be shot and performed. There's also the layers Kiarostami is playing with as far as a scene being shot for a film, that scene being one for a film that's within another film, and then a story developing between two characters, two people who were (as in the other Koker movies) non professional actors and people who survived the Earthquake as Hossein is talking at Tahereh the woman in the scene. It's this third part that I am more critical of than anything.

I get that this comes out of the dialog Hossein has with the Not-Coppola about how rich and rich shouldn't marry nor illiterate and illiterate and instead those who can read and those who can't should get together. But for me, and clearly I'm in the minority on this as the film is now much beloved, I don't see something all that compelling or just satisfying about this "I want you you must be with me marry me etc" tract the Hossein character is on. He's smitten, but it's clear she's (as the saying goes) just not that into the dude.

Tahereh, who we dont get to know anywhere near as much as Hossein by the way, never engages him in conversation and doesn't even look at him in those downtime moments between takes and then as she walks home post filming later on. I'd stop short of calling it creepy, but it certainly isn't "romantic" either. And, perhaps Kiarostami knows this, Hossein isn't that uh affable or charming, so it's all just a long line of talk at her more than with her.

This may all be fine for most audiences, or those who can meet this part of the film more than halfway, but I struggled with it. And this is apart from if it's not as powerful or impactful as the other Koker films - though, frankly, this isn't the best of them, and I may just prefer the relative simplicity of Friend's House more. But as a sort of poetic expression, not least of which displayed with a profound sense of cinematic feeling with that final shot of the two figures going through the trees and up the hill (the little slice of hope for our stalwart survivor), I think I wanted to get more wrapped up in Hossein's wants and needs and I just couldn't, whether it be because he's (naturally) somewhat limited as a performer and that... I'm watching this thinking "man, she's not playing hard to get, she just wants to be left alone, like get the net."

So, this has plenty of good ideas, even on the meta-textual level(s) the filmmaker is playing with. But was I moved? Not really, and I don't think that's a fault with me using my poetic super energy to fly into the celluloid, rather that there's a remove personally from the relationship at the center. For me.

How do we say poetry in Moviesh?

[florinc · 9/10 · 17 January 2015]

One can write prose, one can write poetry, one can write poetry inside prose... One makes movies. Period.

And what if it is more detailed? How can we say it? The people in this move have nothing left but their humanity, kindness and customs. Humanity is not enough, kindness is not enough. Customs are not helping. A combination of them, patience and belief in success to make one's life happy... Humans stripped to bare necessities, food, water, shelter, remain humane and kind and strive for happiness. The end shot ties all the ties tight, like a poem.

Pure poetry.

I will reveal to you my love in the flower-decorated balcony

[hello-82528 · 8/10 · 20 June 2018]

How wonderfully and simple a movie can be? proof is this movie. The man with his passions, his wants and his morals -conformist (per country) within the nature. A very beautiful and subtle poetic film.

I'm sorry, But I had to drop it

[tilenpetek-78920 · 3/10 · 3 August 2021]

I should probably stop trying to like Kiarostami, because i clearly can't even watch anything he makes lol.

One of the five best foreign language movies of the 90's.

[SkaVenger · 24 July 1999]

This is the art movie in its essence. Every single minute of this movie is complexly detailed. It was considered by the critics a masterpiece but it could not be nominated for the Academy Awards in the 'Foreign Language Category' because of political problems between Iran and USA at the time (but in 99 'Children of Heaven' was nominated).

It was written by Abbas Kiarostama, who also wrote 'The White Balloon' (another great film) and 'Taste of Cherry' (not so good, although it won the Cannes Palm D'or).

This is a must see for any fan of artfilms. Simply fantastic, amazing and everything else, this movie is a 'sea of creativity'.

Fascinating!

[mesbhaadv · 10/10 · 27 November 2019]

I'm a blind fan of Abbas Kiarostami's films. This is one of his best work. Can't be described in words. You watch, you feel.

A master of conveying humanity in vulnerability

[willeasyer · 8/10 · 10 July 2020]

Kiarostami's cinéma, is very humane, his movies are gentle, raw and compassionate Outlook into the psych of humans, therefore kiarostami's is the king of protraying the essence of our emotions and what makes us humans on a surgically precise and honest level. And through the olive trees is the perfect example, always following his documentary/fiction signature he directs a movie about a guy in love trying to defy his condition, the refusal of he surroundings and convince the subject of his affection while directing a movie inside a movie, where he as a director perfectly played by mohamed ali in the movie whom after sympathizing with Houssein's honesty and naive and deep love for this girl, makes from his movie a quest to put this two subjects on the same path and help houssein express his feelings for the girl. The result is heart-warming, tendering and tear jerking. The film also beside being a beautiful unconventional love story is a painting set in this villages surrounded by olives standing as witnesses to this vilmagers struggle after the earthquake (i know what it feels i've been there) as Kiarostami molds with them and get to know and hear their stories while conveying the beautyof sucj place even after a terrific disaster, for him this movie is also a sort of an homage. a beautiful and honest masterpiece.