A story full of life about suicide. Abbas Kiarostami submerges us into the (maybe) last hours of Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) while he is trying to seek someone to either bury or help him get out of the hole he has dug after attempting suicide.

Majorly filmed inside Badii’s car as he tries to find the suitable and willing candidate, during time we share with him we get to know a wide array of characters that either approach or directly enter the car. The three main candidates give us a great view of both the multicultural and professional landscape of Iran. We get to know a young Kurdish boy during his mandatory military service, an adult seminarist from Afghanistan, and lastly an older Azerbaijani Turk man of sciences.

Although the film starts slightly slow while we are just wondering with Badii in his car through the streets and desertic mounts of Tehran, the film gathers speed once we start getting people into the car and the conversation/monologues start and we come to know the intentions of our protagonist as well as the reactions of the people he recruits. From all of those the highlight is by far the interaction with the Azerbaijani Turk (played by a fantastic first- and only-time actor named Abdolrahman Bagheri), since it is truly the one the gives the most soul to the film and as a result gives the most meaningful light, clarity and thought to the conflict of our main character.

All this is presented through a highly simplistic filming technique based basically in close-ups of the people either speaking or listening, some still filming, and some images tracking the path of the car. It is precisely and especially through this last method that we get to see the fantastic location in which most of the film takes place, a small mount filled of both sand, aridness, nothingness, and colourful trees, people, movement, perfectly representing the death and life that is at stake in the film.

This review could go for much longer, getting much more into the details of how this debate between life and death gets developed and we could go deep into various interpretations, but maybe that is not the best thing to do in order to not affect potential viewers on their own interpretations giving them preconceived biases. Therefore, it would be best if we leave it here just by saying that if that is a topic of interest to you, this is definitely a movie that you should see. Excepting the aforementioned issues in speed and some higher and lower moments, overall, we have a profound matter treated through an honest and simple manner, which is probably the best way to approach such things.