Through The Olive Trees- Abbas Kiarostami _top_ Jun 2026

The camera holds. The screen goes black.

Off-screen, a real-world drama unfolds. Hossein is deeply in love with Tahereh. He had proposed to her before the earthquake, but her wealthy grandmother rejected him because he is illiterate and owns no house. The earthquake leveled Tahereh’s home and killed her parents, yet the rigid social hierarchy remains intact.

While the backdrop of the film features collapsed buildings and temporary tents, Kiarostami refuses to wallow in misery. Instead, the film celebrates the stubborn persistence of life. People are rebuilding homes, matchmaking, and falling in love amidst the rubble. Non-Professional Actors

★★★★½ (Essential viewing for lovers of world cinema and metafiction.) Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami

The 1990 earthquake, which killed over 30,000 people, is never shown directly. Instead, it is the invisible ground of the entire trilogy. For Hossein, the tragedy has a perverse silver lining: it destroyed Tahereh’s family home and killed her parents, theoretically making her less socially superior. He argues, “The earthquake changed everything… Now we are equal.” Kiarostami neither endorses nor condemns this logic; he presents it as a raw, human attempt to find hope in catastrophe. The rubble-strewn landscape becomes both a real memorial and a movie set—a place where art tries to make sense of trauma.

On the movie set, these social boundaries blur. Cinema gives Hossein a voice and a platform. Within the world of the film-within-a-film, he is elevated to Tahereh's husband. Kiarostami uses this setup to create a gentle, humorous friction between social reality and cinematic illusion. Hossein uses his scripted lines to communicate his real-world devotion to a silent, unresponsive Tahereh. Cosmic Optimism and Resilience

To understand Through the Olive Trees , one must first understand its context. The 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake was a cataclysm that killed over 40,000 people and flattened entire villages in the Gilan province. Kiarostami, no stranger to the intersection of art and reality, traveled to the region shortly after. The result was And Life Goes On , a fictionalized account of a film director (played by Farhad Kheradmand) searching for the child actors from Where Is the Friend’s House? amidst the devastation. The camera holds

The film’s plot is elegantly simple on the surface, yet dizzying in its implications. A film crew, led by a director (played by professional actor Mohamad Ali Keshavarz), arrives in the earthquake-devastated town to shoot a scene for And Life Goes On . The scene involves a young, newly married couple moving into a damaged house. The husband is Hossein (Hossein Rezai playing himself), a stonemason who has lost everything in the quake. The wife is Tahereh (Tahereh Ladania), a shy, educated young woman from a more respectable family.

To explore this masterpiece further, I can break down the film in more detail if you tell me your focus:

Through the Olive Trees competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and solidified Kiarostami’s reputation as a master of modern cinema. It perfectly encapsulates his philosophy: that cinema should not give answers, but rather ask questions and collaborate with the viewer's mind. Decades after its release, the film remains a masterclass in how to find profound cosmic beauty within the ordinary fabric of human life. Hossein is deeply in love with Tahereh

Tahereh, a young student, refuses to speak to Hossein because he is poor and illiterate. This behind-the-scenes drama constantly interrupts the fictional film shoot, forcing the director to navigate real-world social conflicts. Themes of Class and Tradition

A meta-cinematic look behind the scenes of a single scene from And Life Goes On .

: The film is known for its contemplative pace and long, wide shots that allow the natural landscape—the lush green hills and vast olive groves—to become central characters.

The plot of Through the Olive Trees is deceptively simple. A film director (played by Mohamad Ali Keshavarz) arrives in Koker to shoot a movie. He casts two local non-professional actors, Hossein and Tahereh, to play a newlywed couple.