Review: 'Taste Of Cherry' Still Potent with a 4K Blu-ray Release

As an artist fascinated with human journeys and the quotidian passing between strangers, Abbas Kiarostami has taken viewers on multiple expeditions through the human soul and the ways in which art can capture it. Metatextual in many ways, Kiarostami's work is all at once about the film itself, the story it presents and how that story is told.

His 1997 masterpiece "Taste of Cherry" is no exception to this rule. It follows a middle-aged man named Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) who drives around Tehran looking for someone to bury him after he commits suicide, which is a taboo under Islam. He encounters three passengers, each offering their own interpretations as to what Badii is requesting of them, and as the film progresses we're given insight upon insight into others' views on mortality, choice, compassion, and more.

The film is challenging in the best sorts of ways, as it leaves you wrestling with more than you can chew. It lingers beautifully, and its haunting effect is something that is raw, soulful, and felt strongly by Kiarostami, his crew and his actors. There's nothing like Kiarostami's body of work, and "Taste of Cherry" is but an iota of his genius oeuvre.

Now available on The Criterion Collection, "Taste of Cherry" is beautifully restored in 4K, giving you the truest splendor of Kiarostami's frames. Bonus features on the Blu-ray release include:

� "Project" - Abbas Kiarostami's 39-minute 1997 sketch film for "Taste of Cherry," made with the director's son Bahman Kiarostami
� New interview with Iranian film scholar Hamid Naficy
� Rare 1997 interview with Abbas Kiarostami, conducted by Iranian film scholar Jamsheed Akrami
� New English subtitle translation
� An essay by critic A. S. Hamrah

"Taste of Cherry"
Criterion Collection Blu-ray
$31.96
www.criterion.com/films/242-taste-of-cherry