Page 12 - Cine Appétit Issue 01
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Rebanta Gupta Cine Appétit
movement, suddenly comes to an eerie who faces an ironical rebuke by the solitary
climactic silence. Hossein now starts running meeting, where the lovers are untethered from
in an exalted manner towards the audience, as the harsh judgement of the world, and they are
the music becomes playful. The interplay of contained in their own world of romantic
silence and music conveys the message, completeness. Kiarostami lets the lovers meet in
Tahereh has given her consent. silence, and restrains the audience’s curiosity by
creating distance between the two worlds
The orthodox Iranian society still rejects the deliberately.
intermixing of men and women, where a
woman can’t look a man in his eyes They might have parted their ways, but the
passionately. Thus Kiarostami makes the two separation is a prelude to the symphony of love
lovers melt into the green obscurity, away they are going to orchestrate. The alienation of
from the eyes of the voyeuristic audience. In the lover’s world from the world of the
the primitive lap of nature, away from the audience attains a political dimension, which
orthodox prying eyes, they converge to make metaphorically heralds the dawn of modernist
their confession, heard only by their ancient conceptions in the Iranian society, where
guardians-the meadows and the olive trees. Hossein and Tahereh are Adam and Eve of a
The moment of silence, where the music new Garden of Eden, which is free from
suddenly collapses, is loaded with the film’s religious fundamentalism and cultural
accumulated tension, waiting for catharsis, but restrictions. This film seems to anticipate the
the silence is vibrating with the tensed films of Jafar Panahi and Marjane Satrapi, who
wavelengths of two passionate hearts. It’s the have bolstered the cause of liberalism and
twilight zone of intersection between female emancipation in modern Iranian
uncertainty and certainty; yearning and society. Structured like a simple love story,
acceptance. The exalted body language of Through the Olive Trees is a political parable, and
Hossein, who has now received an answer and a quest to derive meaning from this absurd
dashing back home, carries the soft signature world. Roxana Hadidi writes,“ “The people who
of Tahereh’s consent in his heart, otherwise, died…Did they know?” This is Keshavarz’s
he would certainly have been drooping if he question in that film within a film, and
had faced rejection. The playful tune Kiarostami’s question to us as viewers of both:
(“Concerto for Oboe and Strings” by the Before we face our end, do we know what we
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra) underscores want from life, from ourselves, from each
the ecstatic mindscapes of the boy, since no other? Are we Hossein, or are we Tahereh?” The
words can capture his rejoice, but the cascade film celebrates the silent overtures of love, sung
of musical notes. The playful tune subtly by Robert Browning in Meeting at Night, “And a
notifies, that the lady has accepted the lover’s
voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears/ Than the
advances. The director pursuing Hossein two hearts beating each to each.”
becomes the representative of the voyeuristic
audience,
THE EASTERLY ISSUE 01 | SEPT ‘20 |PAGE 12
