Through the Olive Trees (1994)

Knowing nothing about director or about the serie, I saw this film as lovely embroidery between Godard and Paradjanov influences. A filmmaker and the choice of actors, an impossible love story , splendid landscapes and the effort to not only make the film but influence the life of the other. A bitter story, generous cinematography, portrait of a world from East , gorgeous last scenes. And the memories about atmosphere, more about the story itself.

Fmovies: Following a film he made a few years backs, a director returns to the area where it was shot to try and find the actors who he used. The area has been hit by a large earthquake and the film is designed to help the area as well as follow up on the people. Among the cast is a young man, Hossein, who has fallen for one of the other actors and seeks to marry her – but her grandmother refuses to consider any such offer; ironic perhaps, considering Hossein's character in the film is married to the very girl he loves in real life.

While making the sequel (or follow up) to "Where is the friend's house?" Abbas Kiarostami met a man who told him that he was married 5 days after the devastating earthquake (50,000 dead) that is the foundation for that film. A few years later Kiarostami decided to use this man and his story as the basis for this rather intriguing film within a film. The dual plots are interesting and work well in contrast to one another to fill out a plot that is not the easiest to get excited about or really engaged by. In this regard many viewers may feel bored or distant from the material as it doesn't quite build a story that well. The "film within a film" concept is interesting but it produces many scenes that are replayed over and over (different takes) without the repeats adding a great deal – in fact they seem to take away from the rhythm of the film more than give to it. As with other Kiarostami films, it is slow and requires work, but even if you are willing to put yourself into it, it is still not easy work.

The characters and place are interesting and it does feel like these are over and above the material itself. The film will be of greater interest to those who have seen the other films in the trilogy as the places and people have history to them, but they are still well enough done to avoid it being key to the film. The cast do pretty well throughout; Rezai steals the show with a good performance; Ladanian is totally absent and her performance will be hard (was hard!) for a Western audience to appreciate. Keshavarz does pretty well in the role of the director.

Overall this is not a film to come to unless you have seen at least one of the other two films (ideally both. It is watchable without this knowledge but even with it, it is hard work at times. The narrative is slow and not that important apparently and, although the characters and places are interesting, I did struggle to really get emotionally involved in the film. Interesting enough to be worth a look but don't expect too much from it.

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.

Through the Olive Trees fmovies. Through the Olive Trees is a great example of how neo-realistic techniques can show realism in film making. One personal criticism would be the music, but that is purely personal, and takes nothing away from the film. A masterpeice.

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'.

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.