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.
Kiarostami gives us a single, vertiginous, long tracking shot. The camera, mounted on a jeep, moves parallel to the two figures walking along a dirt road. But the terrain is uneven. The jeep rises and falls. The frame shakes. The wind blows the microphone. Between the camera and the couple, a thick row of olive trees constantly slips in and out of the foreground, obscuring our view.
Through the Olive Trees relies heavily on long takes, natural lighting, and non-professional actors. Kiarostami avoids conventional Hollywood melodrama. Instead, he allows human behavior to unfold at its own natural pace. Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami
The olive trees themselves act as both a visual motif and a thematic sanctuary. The groves offer a lush, vibrant contrast to the dusty, ruined landscapes left by the earthquake. Kiarostami uses the natural geometry of the landscape—winding paths, rolling hills, and rows of trees—to map out the emotional distance between his protagonists.
Through the Olive Trees solidified Kiarostami’s reputation as a pioneer of the Iranian New Wave. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and received widespread international acclaim. To understand Through the Olive Trees , one
The film serves as the final installment of the celebrated , which began with the simple moral quest of Where Is the Friend's House? (1987) and continued through the earthquake-ravaged landscape of And Life Goes On (1992). While the previous films focused on responsibility and resilience, Through the Olive Trees turns the camera inward, focusing on the meta-narrative of filmmaking itself. It recreates the production of a single, minor scene from the second film, revealing a rich, unrequited love story happening just off-camera. Love in the Aftermath
The documentary-style filming of the movie-within-a-movie. The result was And Life Goes On ,
He runs ahead, turns around, and walks backward in front of her, still talking. She sidesteps him. They disappear behind a tree. They re-emerge. He continues his monologue. She continues to ignore him.
The film is famously "meta," focusing on a film crew returning to the village of to shoot a scene for Kiarostami’s previous film, And Life Goes On . The central plot follows Hossein , a local mason cast as an actor, who uses the production as an opportunity to pursue Tahereh , a young woman who has consistently rejected his marriage proposals.
The shot lasts eleven minutes. For eleven minutes, we watch a one-sided conversation. Hossein lectures, pleads, cajoles, and reasons. He talks about his house, his reading habits, the practicalities of marriage. He explains why he is worthy of her. Tahereh says nothing. She stares straight ahead. She does not run, she does not turn around. She simply walks.