Through The Olive Trees- Abbas Kiarostami ((exclusive)) [2025-2026]

The two individuals shrink into tiny white dots against a sea of green. Hossein catches up to Tahereh. They speak, but the audience cannot hear their words. Suddenly, Hossein turns and runs back through the trees, leaping with joy.

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Tahereh, conversely, refuses to speak to him directly. When the director (playing a version of Kiarostami) calls "Cut," she retreats into stony silence. Her only line in the film that addresses Hossein personally is whispered so quietly that the crew cannot hear it. We, the audience, are left to guess what she says.

(1987): A straightforward story about a boy trying to return a classmate's notebook. And Life Goes On Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami

In the pantheon of world cinema, few filmmakers have blurred the line between documentary and fiction with the philosophical rigor of Abbas Kiarostami. As the leading light of the Iranian New Wave, Kiarostami constructed films that were not merely stories but meditations on the very nature of storytelling. While his 1997 masterpiece Taste of Cherry won the Palme d’Or, it is the final film of his informal “Koker Trilogy”— Through the Olive Trees (1994)—that serves as the most breathtaking and vertiginous essay on the relationship between art, reality, and obsession.

One of Kiarostami’s most charming innovations is the portrayal of the film director (played by Mohamad Ali Keshavarz). This is not the auteur-as-tyrant stereotype. Instead, he is a tired, pragmatic mediator. He doesn’t care about Hossein’s romantic obsession; he cares about getting the shot.

While Kiarostami himself often resisted the "trilogy" label, critics have long grouped Through the Olive Trees with Where Is the Friend's House? (1987) and And Life Goes On (1992). The films are linked by their setting in the rural village of in northern Iran, a region devastated by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in 1990. The two individuals shrink into tiny white dots

Kiarostami teaches us that the truth is not found in what the characters say, but in what they do when they think no one is looking—or rather, when they know everyone is looking. Through the olive trees, we do not see a resolution. We see a possibility. And in the cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, a possibility is infinitely more powerful than a certainty.

One of the most striking aspects of "Through the Olive Trees" is its use of the natural world. The film's title refers to the olive groves that dot the landscape, and Kiarostami's camera lingers on the trees, capturing their gnarled beauty and the way the light filters through their leaves. The landscape is not just a backdrop for the action; it is a character in its own right, shaping the emotions and experiences of the people who inhabit it.

Kiarostami masterfully uses wide shots and extended long takes. Rather than forcing emotional intimacy through close-ups, he often steps back. This technique respects the privacy of his characters while allowing the audience to observe them as part of a larger landscape. The Legendary Final Shot Suddenly, Hossein turns and runs back through the

Watching Through the Olive Trees as a standalone experience is certainly rewarding, but to witness it as the capstone of the Koker Trilogy is to see cinema at its most miraculous. It is an invitation to look closer, to question our assumptions, and to find the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. It is a film about the pain of love, the persistence of hope, and the unbreakable bond between a people and their land. As Jean-Luc Godard famously stated, "Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami". If that is true, then Through the Olive Trees is a beautiful, fitting sunset.

In Through the Olive Trees , the "good piece" is the realization that the olive trees do not care about our romances, yet they provide the stage upon which we play out our desperate, beautiful need for connection. The film teaches us that sometimes the most powerful dialogue is silence, and the most perfect ending is the one that continues in the audience's heart long after the screen has gone dark.