Through the Olive Trees / زیر درختان زیتون ( 1994 Abbas Kiarostami & scr, prod, ed)

So, we reach the end again, see earlier comments.

I realised that the scene involving the actor who keeps fluffing his lines is as much about the numbers of deaths caused by the earthquake and its aftermath - whether it's 65 relatives lost or 25 it's still a huge number - and I realise there's a little poke at the authorities there - because the roads were bad, this region didn't get the help it needed and more died than should have. (We saw how difficult it was to get there in the previous film.) There's also a little commentary about the media when the schoolgirls observe that although the previous Kiarostami film was broadcast on TV, 'it's not a channel we get in this region'.

And as to the young lady Tahereh (Tahereh Ladanian), we first hear about her through her grandmother - 'I didn't raise her, thank God!' She never knows where she is or what she's up to - sounds like any teenager anywhere. And when we meet her we sense she's willful. So I think the reason she doesn't talk to Hossein is partly because she's testing him, just to see how committed to her he really is. And that end scene. They both stop. That to me means talking. I don't know, I think she accepts him. That's my ending.

Mohamad Ali Keshavarz plays the patient, intelligent, kindly film director - a prototypical Kiarostami hero.

It amused me that one of the film makers is referred to as 'Mr Panahi'. That's Jafar Panahi, assistant director, who himself became a venerated film maker (have just seen his 3 Faces). Now, whether that's actually Mr Panahi or just an actor playing Mr. Panahi, is a moot point, and typical of the director's preoccupations.

Q came up with the idea we should make an Abbas Kiarostami documentary. This one shows an improvement in technique over the first two. The DPs are Hossein Jafarian and Farhad Saba.