990-992 The Koker Trilogy

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#51 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jan 03, 2020 4:05 pm

This may be my least favorite of the trilogy, but the layers of not just narrative but the idea of what constitutes narrative is interesting as it builds to this film. The concept that narratives exist ubiquitously outside of the scope of a film's own narrative reveals the limitations of the medium and the possibilities of how to flex the structure all at once. I don't really know how to adequately describe the philosophical questions or my own musings of the various skins this film wears, but I do think it reveals something about Kiarostami himself that I missed in previous viewings that is easy to overlook. The curiosity Kiarostami exhibits in these meta-films is more interesting to me than even the intellectual arguments his expressions seem to be opening the doors for, because stripped from all the analysis (and believe me, that part is fascinating) there is a man who is an artist at heart but also demonstrates that being an artist is to some degree an inherent trait of man as well, in our natural wonder that occurs when escaping our own egos and preoccupations of the self. While some may view these films as somewhat pretentious I see Kiarostami aligning as object with his camera's desire for an authentic interest as a student of life, a humble position of the observer and the teachable rather than the imposer, manipulator, and teacher. There's nothing didactic about this but something very reserved and open-minded, and regardless of all the dense philosophical questions that are raised by these films, including the potential for didactic impositions (after all, is it not possible to be both pretentious and humble? Is there a mutual exclusivity to categorizing intent, position and attitude?), there's something incredibly humanist and gentle underneath in the flesh of the star-eyed child who is no better or worse than the viewer but who has identified a measure by which we can access to ability to learn something new, and how special is that.

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#52 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:14 pm

This may also be my "least favorite" of the three films -- but I like them all very much, so that's not much of a negative. I think that this one has gotten better with re-viewing -- possibly to a greater extent than the two prior films. I don't know that I would ever describe Kiarostami as "pretentious" -- rather he comes across as genuinely fascinated by (and enthusiastic about) the "exalted" issues that might come up in his films.

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#53 Post by zedz » Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:53 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:The silence is deafening... :-(
Unfortunately, I think these films are beyond a lot of people. The forum has shifted away from foreign language films and non-genre films, let alone actual works of art.

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#54 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:09 pm

Well, I hope people are just too busy with vacation-time merrymaking. But I am disappointed.

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#55 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:11 pm

This also had the scheduling misfortune of falling over a holiday period when people's ability to visit/revisit a film and put some thoughts together could be limited, so I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that people's inclinations or comprehensive abilities are to blame.

ETA: Michael beat me to it.

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#56 Post by swo17 » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:12 pm

I mean, people did vote for this to be the film discussed. And the set it comes from is likely to top our forum's year-end poll

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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#57 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:19 pm

Well, people voted for Motel Hell too and didn't bother to write about it, so I'm not sure the problem is the forum only being interested in English-language genre films.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)

#58 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jan 03, 2020 6:22 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:14 pm
This may also be my "least favorite" of the three films -- but I like them all very much, so that's not much of a negative. I think that this one has gotten better with re-viewing -- possibly to a greater extent than the two prior films. I don't know that I would ever describe Kiarostami as "pretentious" -- rather he comes across as genuinely fascinated by (and enthusiastic about) the "exalted" issues that might come up in his films.
I'm with you -they're all great and this one has risen in my esteem on rewatches, though And Life Goes On.../Life, and Nothing More has catapulted into second place due in large part to the excellent commentary on Criterion's release. The word "pretentious" is completely incorrect and I retract that, since it assumes a lower talent and professed importance. What I meant to translate was something like "willfully ambitious" to juxtapose the more passive fascination. I do think he balances the will to impose examination (not in a negative sense) and the restraint to allow process in a way few filmmakers can or want to do. And I also get the sense that this "restraint" is not a difficult undertaking or even a choice but a genuine attitude towards his subjects and art.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#59 Post by jigen » Wed May 06, 2020 9:01 am

I watched the Koker trilogy over the last few days and I've fallen completely in love with Where Is My Friend's House? and Life, and Nothing More - both beautiful, graceful, profoundly moving, and woven through with gentle humour. Watching the little boy navigating the village streets in the first film I was reminded of Tati and of Miyazaki.

I'm still struggling with Through the Olive Trees, though. There's so much in the film that I admire, but I was troubled by the young suitor's behaviour, which starts out pushy and annoying and becomes - to my eyes, at least - very unpleasant, entitled and a little frightening. The young man himself seems to suspect that the girl is ignoring him because her family disapproves, but I'm not sure we have any reason to believe that. The sequence near the end where he follows her for several minutes begging and haranguing her made me quite uncomfortable, and it seems to me that in the (visually breathtaking) final scene she finally gives in and agrees to marry him (I've seen this ending described as "ambiguous", but the music and the young man's run make me think she said yes). This didn't sit right with me. I rewatched the film to understand it a little better, but I came away with the same feeling.

But I also think I might be looking through the wrong end of the telescope here. Maybe I've missed something. I've seen a number of Kiarostami's films, and he strikes me as a highly sensitive filmmaker, and many critics I admire hold this film in high esteem, so I wonder if they read this character differently. It seems this film is quite well-liked on this board, so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this character/relationship.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#60 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed May 06, 2020 10:32 am

jigen - Have you watched the interview with the (now no longer) young man and his real life wife (whose story is pretty close to the one told in the film -- but not QUITE the same)? I liked the film even more after watching this. ;-)

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#61 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Wed May 06, 2020 11:33 am

jigen wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 9:01 am
I'm still struggling with Through the Olive Trees, though. There's so much in the film that I admire, but I was troubled by the young suitor's behaviour, which starts out pushy and annoying and becomes - to my eyes, at least - very unpleasant, entitled and a little frightening. The young man himself seems to suspect that the girl is ignoring him because her family disapproves, but I'm not sure we have any reason to believe that. The sequence near the end where he follows her for several minutes begging and haranguing her made me quite uncomfortable, and it seems to me that in the (visually breathtaking) final scene she finally gives in and agrees to marry him (I've seen this ending described as "ambiguous", but the music and the young man's run make me think she said yes). This didn't sit right with me. I rewatched the film to understand it a little better, but I came away with the same feeling.
Through the Olive Trees is a personal favorite, an all time great film. My advice is to embrace the moral and tonal complexity, both of which are perfectly fitting for a movie about the tension between reality and artifice.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#62 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed May 06, 2020 12:14 pm

The real-life story that inspired Olive Trees seems like a moving and sweet one -- albeit not as complicated as Kiarostami's version. ;-)

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#63 Post by jigen » Wed May 06, 2020 2:10 pm

Thank you for your thoughtful replies! I'll have a look for the interview Michael Kerpan mentioned and return to the film in a couple of weeks with fresh eyes, bearing in mind TheKieslowskiHaze's suggestions. As I said there's much in the film that I liked a lot, so I look forward to revisiting it.

Visually, the Iranian countryside in these films is heavenly. Those greens and yellows; the grass and the olive trees rustling in the breeze; the mountain roads as the day draws to a close...

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#64 Post by Calvin » Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:11 am

jigen wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 9:01 am
I'm still struggling with Through the Olive Trees, though. There's so much in the film that I admire, but I was troubled by the young suitor's behaviour, which starts out pushy and annoying and becomes - to my eyes, at least - very unpleasant, entitled and a little frightening. The young man himself seems to suspect that the girl is ignoring him because her family disapproves, but I'm not sure we have any reason to believe that. The sequence near the end where he follows her for several minutes begging and haranguing her made me quite uncomfortable, and it seems to me that in the (visually breathtaking) final scene she finally gives in and agrees to marry him (I've seen this ending described as "ambiguous", but the music and the young man's run make me think she said yes). This didn't sit right with me. I rewatched the film to understand it a little better, but I came away with the same feeling.

But I also think I might be looking through the wrong end of the telescope here. Maybe I've missed something. I've seen a number of Kiarostami's films, and he strikes me as a highly sensitive filmmaker, and many critics I admire hold this film in high esteem, so I wonder if they read this character differently. It seems this film is quite well-liked on this board, so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this character/relationship.
It's my understanding that Kiarostami couldn't show dialogue between Hossein and Tahereh due to the guidelines set down by Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance on what behaviour between members of the opposite sex could be depicted on screen. This does have the effect of making Hossein's behaviour seem irrational, if not a little obsessional, but it does give us the beautiful ambiguity of the ending. I've also read an interesting review from an Islamic viewpoint that compares "Tahereh’s non-responsiveness to Hossein’s entreaties to the perceived non-responsiveness of God to our prayers", which I'm not entirely convinced by but does give some food for thought.

--

I love these films. Where Is The Friend's House? is a film with a plot that - on the face of it - is as simple as its title.

Eight-year-old Ahmed accidentally takes his classmate's notebook home with him. He knows that if his friend doesn't do his homework, due the next day, in that notebook then he will be expelled from the school by their teacher who seems to be more focused on order and discipline than the work itself. With minimal information to go on, Ahmed feels compelled to return the notebook to his friend before it's too late.

It feels like none of the adults around Ahmed, principally his mother, agree with the necessity to embark on this quest. More specifically, it feels like none of the adults are even listening to what he has to say. There's a remarkable scene where Ahmed is explaining his quandary to his mother and there's essentially a tennis match of repetition, a look of confusion on Ahmed's face as we're almost able to hear the wheels of his mind turning, trying to process whether to obey his mother (the right thing) or return the notebook (another right thing).

Kiarostami's gift as a humanist filmmaker shows through how seriously the film treats these simple dilemmas of childhood and the turmoil one can feel when making one morally right decision at the expense of another that is also morally right according to one's moral compass.

The film focuses us on location - where? The film is set in Koker and nearby Poshteh, close enough that Ahmed can dash between the two. This region was devastated by the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake that resulted in over 35,000 dead, 60,000 injured and 105,000 displaced - using the more conservative estimates.

Hence, Kiarostami returned to Koker to check up on the stars of his film and then dramatised his own trip in And Life Goes On.... In the film, the director of Where Is The Friend's Home takes his young son on a journey to Koker. On that journey, we hear from locals who describe to us the earthquake and the loss that they have experienced. In perhaps the film's most pivotal sequence of scenes, we hear from a young newlywed who talks to the director about getting married the day after the quake as the director's young son talks to a mother, in a matter-of-factly manner that only a child would, who has lost her daughter in the quake. "At least she won't have to do homework", says the child. To our surprise, the mother doesn't react badly to this comment. [It's worth watching Homework, included as an extra in the set, to contextualise the references to homework that appear in each film in this trilogy.]

The power of the film comes from the indomitable spirit of the people we encounter. A wedding. An antenna being set up for the World Cup game. Kids playing in the camp. And life goes on, indeed.

The young newlyweds of And Life Goes On... become the focus of Through the Olive Trees, as Kiarostami adds another layer of meta-fiction to what would consequently be labelled as his Koker Trilogy. In Through the Olive Trees, the young newlyweds are not newlyweds at all but actors playing newlyweds for the director of the film that would become And Life Goes On... (or the film that would become Through the Olive Trees? Or both? Kiarostami deliberately muddies these waters). The actor playing the groom, Hossein Rezai, does desire to marry the girl, Tahereh, in reality, but she continually rejects his advances or, rather, stays silent in the face of them as her grandmother rejects them. Tahereh seems to come from a higher social class than Hossein, but he seems to think that the earthquake has levelled this class divide; in one of the film's most memorable scenes, he rejects the idea of marrying another girl for the same reason that Tahereh is seemingly rejecting him, the hypocrisy of which is pointed out to Hossein by the amused director of the film-within-a-film.

Kiarostami's self-reflexive trilogy starts off simple but becomes increasingly complex as he builds up the friction between the layers of fiction and reality that he constructs. Where Is The Friend's House? becomes Where Was The Friend's House - is it still there? Does it matter where the friend's house is? Where is the friend? Who is the friend?

Criterion provides a strong selection of extras, led by a newly restored Homework - a documentary that Kiarostami made between Where Is The Friend's House and Close-Up. In it, Kiarostami interviews children at a school on their thoughts on the titular subject - nearly all of whom are effusive in their praise. The camera cuts between the child and a shot of (what seems like but can't be) itself - the camera acting as a filter between reality and what is being played out for the camera, what it is thought the audience want to see/hear, much like the Koker Trilogy. The film also has wider thoughts about the Iranian education system - we see a playground of primary school aged children vocalising their thoughts on Saddam Hussein, amongst other topics - and parenting, as the kids tell us about the help (or otherwise) that their parents provide them with their homework. Some of what they tell us certainly sounds like what would be child abuse in the here and now.

Presumably/hopefully we will see the other newly restored films that Kiarostami made for Kanoon early in his career appear on a set of their own; a few have already been included as extras on other Criterion Kiarostami releases. Potemkine in France have just released a collection.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#65 Post by denti alligator » Mon Dec 28, 2020 6:46 pm

Can anyone explain why in the Truth and Dreams documentary Kiarostami twice says to his nonprofessional actors (once the kids from Where is the Friend’s House? and again to the man who played in The Traveler) that he does not think their acting was good. More precisely, he says audiences have praised their acting but that he disagrees. Is he being playfully deprecating? Is this some cultural thing I don’t understand? Or is this his way of saying that what they were doing was not actually “acting” but just being themselves? It sound awfully condescending, but I can’t imagine he means it that way.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#66 Post by zedz » Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:45 pm

My reading of that is that it was playful manipulation on the part of Kiarostami because he didn't want them to start thinking of themselves as 'actors', when it was their authenticity that was what Kiarostami was after (and what was likely being praised). I assume the risk of praising a non-professional for their 'acting' is that they might think they ought to do more of it.

I also get the strong sense from a lot of Iranian films that modesty and self-deprecation is a cultural norm in Iran in a way it isn't in the US, say.

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Re: 990-992 The Koker Trilogy

#67 Post by denti alligator » Wed Dec 30, 2020 5:44 pm

Thanks, zedz, makes sense.

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