Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami's poetic trilogy of tales that
blend reality and fiction.
Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry) first came to international
attention for this wondrous, slyly self-referential series of
films set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker. Poised
delicately between fiction and documentary, comedy and tragedy,
the lyrical fables in The Koker Trilogy exemplify both the gentle
humanism and playful sleight of hand that define the director's
sensibility. With each successive film, Kiarostami takes us
deeper into the behind-the-scenes "reality" of the film that
preceded it, heightening our understanding of the complex network
of human relationships that sustain both a movie set and a
village. The result is a gradual outward zoom that reveals the
cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life.
Includes:
Where Is The Friend's House? (1987)
The first film in Abbas Kiarostami's sublime, interlacing Koker
Trilogy takes a simple premise - a boy searches for the home of
his classmate, whose school he has accidentally taken -
and transforms it into a miraculous, child's-eye adventure of the
everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly across two
towns, aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters,
his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of rural Iranian
society in all its richness and complexity and a touching parable
about the meaning of personal responsibility. Sensitive and
profound, Where Is the Friend's House? is through with all
the beauty, tension, and wonder a single day can contain.
And Life Goes On (1992)
In the aftermath of a 1990 earthquake that left at least thirty
thousand dead, Abbas Kiarostami returned to Koker, where his
camera surveys not only devastation but also the teeming life in
its wake. Blending fiction and reality into a playful, poignant
road movie, And Life Goes On follows a film director who, along
with his son, makes the trek to the region in hopes of finding
out if the young star of Where Is the Friend's House? is among
the survivors, and discovers a resilient community pressing on in
the face of tragedy. Finding beauty in the bleakest of
circumstances, Kiarostami crafts a quietly majestic ode to the
best of the human spirit.
Through The Olive Trees (1994)
Abbas Kiarostami takes metanarrative gamesmanship to masterful
new heights in the final instalment of The Koker Trilogy.
Unfolding "behind the scenes" of And Life Goes On, this film
traces the complications that arise when the romantic misfortune
of one of the actors - a young man who pines for the woman cast
as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to
do with him - creates turmoil on set and leaves the hess
director caught in the middle. An ineffably lovely, gentle human
comedy steeped in the folkways of Iranian village life, Through
the Olive Trees peels away layer after layer of artifice as it
investigates the elusive, al relationship between cinema
and reality.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
* New 2K digital restorations of all three films, with
uncompressed monaural soundtracks
* New audio commentary on And Life Goes On featuring Mehrnaz
Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum, co-authors of Abbas Kiarostami
* Abbas Kiarostami: Truths and Dreams, a 1994 documentary
* New interview with Abbas Kiarostami's son Ahmad Kiarostami
* New conversation between Iranian-film scholar Jamsheed Akrami
and film critic Godfrey Cheshire
* Conversation from 2015 between Kiarostami and film-festival
programmer Peter let
* New English subtitle translations
* PLUS: An essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire and more.