Abbas Kiarostami puts his alter-ego, Badii on the road again as he did to Ahmad, farhad, and Hossein in his previous films. In Taste of Cherry, Kiarostami looks for the meaning of life through a different perspecctive than of his Koker Trilogy series which looked at the theme of hope. The film begins with Badii‘s journey through empty mountain roads and the conversations with people he meets on the way. One conversation begins with a medium shot and moves to a long shot of the landscape, which leads us to contemplate nature while listening to the dialogue. This minimalist drama is notable for its rejection of a conventional ending. The appearance of a saint-like taxidermist towards the film‘s end leads us to predict a happy ending but the camera turns to Kiarostami himself in the act of filming, thereby suggesting an open-ended conclusion. Kiarostami looks to the hill from a completely different perspective from Badii‘s earlier view, which leads the audience to look again. As in his previous films, you may find the answer to this one in Kiarostami‘s next work. (Kim Ji-Seok)