A man named Baddi intends to commit suicide. He’s in his fifties. He’s finished planning how to do it. He’s dug a grave. That night he’ll take some sleeping pills and lie down in the grave. The next morning someone will come and cover him with earth. Now the question is: who will do this job? Come morning, he’s taken his car and set out in search of such a person. If someone helps Baddi with this task, they’ll receive a lot of money in return. The money will be kept in the car—after finishing the burial, they can take the money and leave. He’s even willing to pay someone an advance if he finds anyone willing to do the job. A person in a grave, dead or sleeping. The grave needs to be filled by throwing earth into it. That’s all there is to it. Simple enough! Baddi is looking for someone willing to do this job of throwing earth into the grave. This is what Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Taste of Cherry (1997)’ is about.
Just imagine—you’re riding around in a car whose driver no longer wants to live, who plans to kill himself that very day. How would that feel? Why does he want to commit suicide? To murder oneself! Unthinkable! Religion forbids it too. All religions do. When you murder another person, one human being is killed; when you murder yourself, the same thing happens. Yes, suicide is a great sin. But living unhappily is also a kind of sin. What right do we have to keep the life that God has gifted us in a state of misery? When someone’s heart is heavy, their words and behavior cause pain to others too. An unhappy person makes several more people unhappy. Isn’t that sinful? Living while continuously hurting family, friends, people around us, everyone close to us, and ourselves—isn’t that sinful? If it’s not, then I’m living while hurting others, which isn’t sinful, but if I kill myself to find release from this and give others release too, why should that be sinful? Surely God doesn’t want His creation to suffer. What’s the solution to this suffering? When one person leaves the world, many are freed from torment. Then God should approve of that departure, shouldn’t He? What does logic say?
: If you want, you can use your two hands instead of a shovel to put earth in the grave. That way your heart’s touch will be there—you’ll have the feeling that you’re truly helping someone, doing a good deed.
: You’re talking about helping someone? To die? You call that help? I can save a life—that’s a good deed. That you can call help. But you’re asking me to help you die properly? I would have been happy to help you in any other way. You’re asking me to be responsible for someone’s death? But yes, if my help truly serves your purpose, I’ll do the job. The job isn’t easy. Not easy at all! Now tell me, what’s your problem with staying alive? If you don’t tell me your problem, who will agree to help you? You don’t know me, I don’t know you. You have family too, relatives, brothers. Problems with them? Or personal ones? Or can’t you repay debts, so you’re choosing this path? Every problem has a solution. If you don’t discuss your problems, how can anyone help you? We all have problems. Find me one person who has no problems! You won’t be able to. If everyone chose this path as a solution to their problems like you, no one would remain alive in this world—the world would become empty of humans. Isn’t that right? Not a soul anywhere, a completely empty world… can you imagine?
You won’t find a single married person in this world who has never wanted to die. I felt it too. Right after marriage. There was no trouble that didn’t happen between us. Can one live with so many problems and torments? I decided to end myself. One day before dawn I left the house. I took a strong rope with me, one that could be used to make a noose for hanging. I drove to the mulberry orchard. Dawn hadn’t broken yet; there was darkness all around. I threw the rope up toward the top of a tall tree. It didn’t catch. I threw it again—no luck. Then I climbed the tree myself. I tied the rope firmly to the tree. Suddenly! I felt something soft under my hand! It was a mulberry fruit. Sweet, delicious mulberry fruit! I ate it. Ah, what juice, what flavor! I ate another one, then another. Suddenly I saw the sun rising over the hillside. Green nature all around. Ah, what a sight! What an exquisite feeling! Eventually I saw children going to school along that path. They came and stopped under the tree, all looking up at me. They asked me to shake the tree. I shook it. So many mulberries fell down. They all ate the mulberries with satisfaction. Seeing this gave me great peace. I took some mulberries with me and returned home. When I got back, I found my wife still sleeping. When she woke up, she ate the mulberries too. She ate them with great satisfaction.
What happened? I had gone out to kill myself and returned with some mulberries in my hand. That single mulberry saved my life. If I hadn’t felt its touch, I might not be here today. I changed myself. I stopped seeing life the way I used to. I felt a kind of peace in this change. Everyone’s life has problems. Life is like this. Look, there are so many people in this world—you won’t find a single family that has no problems. You’re still not saying what your problem actually is. If I knew, I could help you live. When you go to a doctor, you have to tell him all your problems openly. If you don’t, how can he help you? A man went to a doctor and said, wherever I touch my body, I feel pain there. The doctor examined him and said, your finger is broken—of course it will hurt! Where is your problem, do you know? It’s in your mind. There’s no problem anywhere else. Everything is fine, just as it should be. Change your mind, change the way you see things, change the path of your thinking—you’ll see, everything will be fine.
I left home to die, yet a simple mulberry fruit saved me, brought me back home. The world isn’t as you see it. The world is just as it is. You need to change the way you see—the world will change then too. It will, it will! Be optimistic. Life has been given to live, not to die. If you want to die over small problems, then nothing has been accomplished. Life is greater than all of life’s problems. Remember this. This life is like a train, always rushing forward, rushing along, and eventually the final station will come—then life ends. Death waits there. Yes, death is a solution, but it has its time. When all your strength is exhausted, you can no longer move, the body has wasted away, the body is aged—then you may die, but why before? You think something through, then realize you were wrong, but by then it’s too late. What’s the use? When we do something, the mind says what I’m doing is right. Eventually we think, alas, why did I do that? In momentary excitement, people make so many mistakes!
All hope for living has been lost, hasn’t it? Well, when you wake up in the morning, have you ever looked up at the sky? This magnificent sunrise—don’t you want to see it anymore? That red-golden sun at sunset—won’t you see it again? Haven’t you seen the silver moon like a plate? The festival of stars filling the sky—one could live just to see that! Moonlit nights, when the moon floods everything around with pure white light—and you’ll close your eyes forever? Those people in the afterlife look at this world and say, ah, if only we could return! And you want to go there! The babbling stream that flows—won’t you ever bathe in it again? Don’t you want to drink that crystal-clear water? Look at the seasons—each season brings some delicious fruit with it. Summer or autumn, winter or spring—each brings some blessing. The food that nature gives us—no mother could store so much food in her refrigerator for her child. What God does for His creation, no mother could do for her child. All this wealth—has it no value? You want to leave all this behind and go? The heavenly taste of cherry fruit—doesn’t it call to you? Doesn’t it tell you to live? I am your friend. I’m pleading with you—live.
Even after all this, Baddi doesn’t want to live. He remains firm in his decision. We want to know—why does he want to die? The movie gives no direct answer. A barren, rocky, hilly wasteland; a car rushes along raising dust. The place speaks only of death—the grave is dug there. Baddi searches for his post-death friend, while we from this side of the screen search for the meaning of life. The film’s pace is slow; watching it might bring fatigue, yet the more this film progresses, the more the person within us seems to find answers to various questions without even asking. It’s not Baddi’s death plot but his death-wish that is this film’s soul. Did Baddi, who had lost faith in life, ultimately live? After lying in the grave, rain falls. Did that rain bring life to that lifeless land? Who will come the next morning to throw earth into his grave? Well, why won’t Baddi tell us why he doesn’t want to live?
Sometimes there come moments in a person’s life when they cannot wait for God’s timing and take the burden of their own death into their own hands. But why? What lies behind this indifference toward life? Baddi says: There’s no benefit for you in knowing why I want to die. And I don’t want to tell you either. Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand. It’s not that you lack the capacity to understand—you have it. But you could never feel the emotion from which I want to die. At most, you could show sympathy, try to understand, but you could never feel my agony. You suffer just as I do. You could only understand that I’m suffering—but experiencing it is beyond your capacity. Not just yours, but everyone’s… Indeed, that’s true. There’s nothing to explain one’s pain, sorrow, and anguish to others. The joy of swallowing pain and living is something else! No one can share pain; on the contrary, sharing pain might bring additional suffering if someone takes my pain the wrong way. Smiling face, pain in the heart—that’s what life is!