A man drives a Range Rover across a building site on the edge of Teheran. He is looking for someone who can bury his body. He has already dug the grave. All the person has to do – in exchange for a considerable sum of money – is find his body after he has committed suicide. The suicide is planned for the next night. The first person he speaks to, a soldier, refuses in shock. The idea sounds all too strange to him. The second is an Afghan who arms himself against the very thought of suicide – banned by Islam – by spouting all kinds of texts from the Koran. Then the man meets a taxidermist who does not respond to his question with incomprehension. He says that he too has toyed with the same idea, but little yet essential things, such as dawn or the taste of cherries, made him change his mind.Answering questions about the apparently macabre subject of his film, Kiarostami refers to the statement by the French philosopher Cioran: ‘If the chance of committing suicide didn’t exist, I would long ago have ended it all.’ While previous films were based on hope, such as And Life Goes On, Where is the House of my Friend? and Through the Olive Trees, Kiarostami’s latest film is about despair – a theme that has been elaborated no less wisely and humanely. In Cannes, Kiarostami shared the main prize with Imamura.
