page_title: Abbas Kiarostami
section_title: Themes of life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Abbas Kiarostami / Cinematic style / Themes of life and death
caption_attribution_description: Abbas Kiarostami and Paulo Branco at the Estoril Film Festival in 2010
context_page_description: Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active film-maker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker trilogy, Close-Up, The Wind Will Carry Us, and Taste of Cherry, which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In later works, Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love, he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively. His films Where Is the Friend’s Home?, Close-Up, and The Wind Will Carry Us were ranked among the 100 best foreign films in a 2018 critics' poll by BBC Culture. Close-Up was also ranked one of the 50 greatest movies of all time in the famous decennial Sight & Sound poll conducted in 2012.
  Kiarostami had worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer and had designed credit titles and publicity material. He was also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer.
context_section_description: The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works. In the Koker trilogy, these themes play a central role. As illustrated in the aftermath of the 1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake disaster, they also represent the power of human resilience to overcome and defy destruction.
  Unlike the Koker films, which convey an instinctual thirst for survival, Taste of Cherry explores the fragility of life and focuses on how precious it is.
  Symbols of death abound in The Wind Will Carry Us, with the scenery of the graveyard, the imminence of the old woman's passing, and the ancestors referred to early in the film by the character Farzad. Such devices prompt the viewer to reflect on the parameters of the afterlife and immaterial existence. The viewer is asked to consider what constitutes the soul, and what happens to it after death. In discussing the film, Kiarostami said that he is the person who raises questions, rather than answers them.
  Some film critics believe that the assemblage of light versus dark scenes in Kiarostami's film grammar, such as in Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us, suggests the mutual existence of life with its endless possibilities, and death as a factual moment of anyone's life.
caption: Kiarostami (left) at the Estoril Film Festival in 2010
exif: {"Image DateTime": "2013:08:14 00:43:32", "Image ExifOffset": "58", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "106", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4896"}