I found this Iranian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was an easy to remember title, but I didn't else about it, but critics gave it positive reviews, so I hoped it would be good, directed by Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us). Basically Hossein (Hossein Rezai) is a local stonemason who has become an actor, filming on location for the movie Zendegi Edame Darad (And Life Goes On). Outside the film set, Hossein makes a marriage proposal to his leading lady, a student named Tahereh (Tahereh Ladanian),she was orphaned by an earthquake. Hossein is poor and illiterate, because of this the girl's family are insulted by his proposal, and the girl avoids him as a result. Even during filming, she continues to evade him, she also seems to have trouble grasping the difference her role in the film and her real-life self. Things get more complicated as Hossein continues to pursue the affections of the young actress while the filming goes on, the Film Director (Mohamad Ali Keshavarz) learns about this and tries to advise him what to do. The girl manages to finish the scene while Hossein attempts to woo her, she departs, and Hossein runs after her. In the final scene, at a great distance, the girl finally gives an answer to Hossein, we are left with him running through a green field, and back through the olive trees, and we never know what the response is given by the girl. The documentary style of filming is interesting, the director pokes fun at the filmmaking process, with memorable take after take sequences of the lead actor going up and down a flight of stairs and messing up a line, this film blurs the lines between life and art, and it has some good sights of Iran's northlands, a reasonable drama. Worth watching!

Reviewer's Note: The Iranian movie Zire darakhatan zeyton (1994) was shown in the U.S. with the title Through the Olive Trees. The film was written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami.

The movie is the third of a series of films entitled "The Koker Trilogy." Koker is a small village 200 miles northwest of Tehran. No one outside Iran would know anything about Koker, except for Kiarostami's films. He used Koker as the setting for the first film in the trilogy-Where is the Friend's House? (1987). (This is an amazing movie, with an IMDb rating of 8.1.) However, Koker was still just an obscure village.

Koker is now famous because of a horrible tragedy that took place in the region on June 21, 1990. A devastating earthquake destroyed Koker and many surrounding villages. The loss of life was immense--about 50,000 people died, including 20,000 children. Almost all the buildings were destroyed. Kiarostami directed two more films about Koker. Now, the location is well known to Iranians and cinephiles.

In real life, director Kiarostami and his son traveled to Koker five days after the earthquake occurred. They wanted to find out if the two brothers who starred in the first film had survived the earthquake. Kiarostami turned his trip into a movie. That film was And Life Goes On (1992). He found that despite the immense grief felt by the local people, life did, indeed, go on.

Through the Olive Trees stars Mohamad Ali Keshavarz as The Film Director. He's the only professional actor in any of the three movies. As is usual for Kiarostami, the other actors are local amateurs. Farhad Kheradmand plays Farhad. He was also in And Life Goes On. Zarifeh Shiva portrays Mrs. Shiva, who is the director's assistant.

In this film, Kiarostami has made a movie about making a movie. The movie they are making is And Life Goes On. There's no shortage of movies about making movies. However, I've never seen a movie about making a movie that already exists. It's a brilliant concept, because we can recognize segments of And Life Goes On as they appear in Through the Olive Trees.

However, Through the Olive Trees is really about the relationship of two young people. Hossein Rezai portrays Hossein, who had a four-minute, but important, segment in And Life Goes On. In that segment, he tells us that he and his wife were married the day after the earthquake. They were engaged, the wedding had been planned, and they went ahead with it. This demonstrated a key element of And Life Goes On--the couple embodied the human desire to pick up the pieces and move forward with life, and with replacing death with new life.

In this movie, we learn that Hossain has fallen in love with the woman who played the young wife--Tahereh. However, Tahereh (portrayed by Tahereh Ladanian) apparently wants nothing to do with Hossain. Tahereh lost both of her parents in the earthquake, so she now lives with her grandmother. Her grandmother absolutely rejects Hossain because he's illiterate and doesn't own a house. That makes sense, except that Hossain is intelligent and ambitious, and truly loves the young woman.

So, what we have is a plot within a movie about making a movie. It sounds confusing, but it works.

Kiarostami is famous for using panoramic long shots, and this is what we see at the end of the film. The closing long shot is amazing and unforgettable, but ambiguous.

This is an amazing movie. It has an extremely high IMDb rating of 7.8. I rated it 10. It worked well enough on the small screen, but of course it would be better in a theater. We saw it on a Criterion DVD, sold with the other two movies in the trilogy. The films may be available separately, which would be OK. However, the Criterion edition has many video extras, along with a written essay by noted film critic Godfrey Cheshire.

I would say that the three trilogy movies are all must-see films if you love great international cinema. Find them and watch them.

IMPORTANT: The trilogy should be seen in order of production: Where is the Friend's House? then, And Life Goes On, then, Through the Olive Trees. The movies will each work separately, but they won't work as well if seen out of that order.

It's so relatable and funny. The director in the film was clearly fed-up of all what's been happening during the production. Reminds me a lot of the stuff I've seen when I was once playing in a school play.