The film is the third in a series set in Northern Iran's Koker region: Where is the Friend's Home? (1987) : A simple story about a boy returning a notebook. And Life Goes On (1992)
The Koker Trilogy: Journeys of the Heart - The Criterion Collection Through the olive trees- Abbas Kiarostami
In an era of bloated blockbusters and explicit narratives, Through the Olive Trees is a radical act of humility. It asks us to watch differently—not to consume a story, but to participate in the construction of meaning. It is a film about filmmaking that is never cynical; a romance that is never sentimental; a tragedy about an earthquake that is actually a comedy about a man carrying a plank. Through the Olive Trees: A Cinematic Journey with
The setting is a landscape of dualities. On one side of the frame, you see the jagged, grey scars of collapsed concrete and shattered brick. On the other, you see the impossibly green, rolling hills of the Caspian coast, punctuated by ancient olive groves. This visual paradox is not accidental. Kiarostami is suggesting that life—and art—exists in the liminal space between utter devastation and serene beauty. The earthquake has leveled houses, but it cannot uproot the trees, nor the stubborn rituals of courtship. Love and Social Class : The film explores
As the concluding chapter of Kiarostami’s unofficial “Koker Trilogy”—following Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987) and And Life Goes On (1992)— Through the Olive Trees is a vertiginous hall of mirrors. It is a film about a film about a disaster, a meta-cinematic triumph that dissolves the boundary between reality, fiction, and the stubborn persistence of human hope.