Through The Olive Trees- Abbas Kiarostami Jun 2026

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.

The film’s greatest structural trick is its nesting-doll complexity. Through the Olive Trees is a film about the making of a film ( And Life Goes On... ), which itself was a film about the search for the child actors from Where Is the Friend’s House? . This layering is not pretentious; it is profoundly humane. It forces you to constantly recalibrate what is “real.” Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami

: The film opens with an actor addressing the camera, identifying himself as the person playing the "director," immediately blurring the lines between documentary and fiction. Tahereh, conversely, refuses to speak to him directly

Through the Olive Trees is streaming on The Criterion Channel and is available on Blu-ray. It is rated Not Rated (suitable for all audiences, though younger viewers may find its pace challenging). For those new to Kiarostami, it is recommended to watch Where Is the Friend's House? first, though Through the Olive Trees stands magnificently alone as a testament to the stubborn, beautiful, heartbreaking act of trying to turn life into art. We, the audience, are left to guess what she says

This scene is a treatise on the ethics of representation. Kiarostami forces us to ask: Where is the real truth? Is it in the scripted line, or in the refusal to say it? Is Tahereh a bad actress, or is she the most authentic person in the frame? By refusing to perform intimacy, she becomes more real to us than any professional actor could be. Kiarostami loves his non-professional actors because they carry the weight of their lives, their traumas, and their biases into the frame. You cannot direct that out of them. You can only film the gap between the script and the soul.