The "ending" (sorta spoiler)

!!. !!!. !!!!. !. !!. !. Not to mention, !!!!!.

I thought the flowers and the soldiers smiling was just a way of saying everything was fine now, that he reached heaven.

i agree. when interviewed, Kiarostami is clear that 1) he does not want to preach in his movies 2) he does not like tugging on the audiences emotive-strings, 3) he wants the audience to know this is a work of fiction, and 4),perhaps most importantly, he wants the movie itself to underdetermine its meaning so that the viewers, unimpeded by emotional tugs by the director, can be a more integral part of the movie by way of involving oneself in this more open-ended interprative process. The ending accomplishes these. it may seem strange to some, as it was to me when i first saw it, but now that i've seen six or seven other kiarostami films and read a bunch of interviews with him, the ending seems to fit right in line with kiarostamis states aims. indeed, without this ending the viewer would indeed be emotionally manipulated by kiarostami to favoring a certain moral interpretation of these events. This is not to say other peoples interpreations of the movie are false, for the point is precisely that a movie in and of itself is incomplete and underdetermined and that its meaning comes not ready-made but out of, or rather in, an interaction with an audience. so, the other interpretations are not false. however, in addition to the other possible interpretations, I believe at the very least the directors stated aims were accomplished by the ending. that some may not like those aims itself, or that some may feel the same aims could have been accomplished better, is another issue.

In my opinion, I agree with the possibility of many interpretations of this movie because of the ending. There's no graphic scene in which we see the actor has died or if the old man carries on with his promise or whatever, so I'm sure that the director wanted us to think for ourself in a way of creating our own ending.
I think the movie was pretty slow but it's necessary if you want to portray the last hours of a man commiting suicide but it's so full of symbols, like the landscape, or the bends of the road showing us the difficulties of life, etc.
But the ending with all the crew and showing us the real filming of the movie left me almost shocked, I really wasn't expecting that. I am analyzing this movie at college and my teacher says it is a way of taking you out of the film, I mean, during the film we see a man that is apparently alone but then we see that he was not he was with the cast and crew of the film. So it's like saying that in life we feel alone but we are not, we are sorrounded by others that are in the same place as you.
Something like that. For me I think the film would have been better without that last scene; I enjoyed a lot the black scene, it makes you be anxious about what it's going to happen next.
Oh, I got a question, does anybody know if the birds have something to do with what is happening in the movie or not?

expanding on my other comment, the gimmics of nonlinearity, false neutrality, constructed ambiguity, hyper-minimalism, the contrived semiotics of screen "realism", etc., make for films which record store poseurs inject into their egos without nessesarily even tasting it.

eg.:

"I thought the film was superb, and those who actively or vehemently disagree ... have missed the point entirely. This film is unique... It is not pre-packaged or formulaic like most films, especially Hollywood films. Even Hollywood films which claim to be "arthouse" or "alternative" turn out to be pretty much closed books, easily forgettable.

"...far more (blah blah blah) than, perhaps, some viewers would care to readily accept... I found the dramatic effect more than appealing. ...as opposed to swallowing it whole-heartedly like a mindless mule gazing at your typical blockbuster flick.

"The best review I've found on "Taste of Cherry" is by David Walsh, who is a brilliant art critic."

and so forth.

Link to the review is now: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1998/apr1998/cher-a11.shtml

A very deep and affecting film. I saw it four years ago and am very happy that there ARE people who have seen it also and were moved. His other work is well worth watching as well but if you don't go to Uni or live in a city there is no chance.

cool :) but i liked the idea of the ending, for me there are 2 ways of "understanding":
1) such unfit ending forces a viewer to some kind of re-thinking of the movie, like "what part of the movie leads to it, are there any hints?", and it somehow sucks you in; if it is so, it's a clever trick, and it is fine for me, even if it's a joke :),
2) i like to think that such ending shows how little things can make people truly happy - look at these people at the end, those soldiers, their smiles - green grass, flowers, breathtaking panoramas of nature, participation in some shots of a movie, they enjoy it so much! and it connects to the story of that old man - some fruits helped to return joy to his life, just some fruits..

I liked the ending however. Accident has played the role of co-director here ;)
Sometimes, I like the movies that does not have ending because they last for ever. Rang-e-Khoda (The color of the heaven) is another movie in the simmilar way.

For whatever reason "Taste of cherry" ends as it ends, the interest for me is the question it raises about who am I.
As an ordinary spectator, I've been following the film, believing in the reality of the characters. Those guys are here on the screen, so they are true. Then comes this end. Wake up. You were not seeing reality. You were seeing actors in a movie. So, what about my reality? Am I also playing a part in a movie, according to what I have understood reality is? Brilliant.
Secundly, Kiarostami give me hints about my own games: the one who reacts according to his own prejudices (and that's, for me, were the first question about "what is reality?" is suggested by the author: sex? mmm, maybe not); the one who keeps doing blindly what he does, no matter what (the plastic man); the one, terrified, who runs away in front of the very idea of death or just the meeting with an unexpected set of mind; the one who keeps to what he is supposed to do (the afghani guard); the one who moralizes and thinks he follows God's wills as if he could guess them; the one who has the experience and is really human and finally the one who wants to die and hopes he will survive.
So let's not forget we're none of them but just our own film director.

P.S. What also touches me in this movie is the fear of Mr Badii to be buried alive. That's what happened in many places during the war with Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The red army would order to the people of a village to dig a huge hole, then all the inhabitants had to jump in it. And the soldiers were covering them with earth. Yes, it has happened on a wide scale.

Kiarostami is not an idiot.

While his first idea may have been destroyed by a lab that does not mean that his alternate ending can be seen as merely a patch up job. He would have meditated on whether to have the film end with the black and the sound of rain or what else could be added. He could have done a number of things... he could have had the sound of the old man throwing rocks in the hole... he could have shot the main charater ordering a kilo of cherries from a grocer... yes very corny but I'm just illustrating the many possibilities that were at the directors hands besides shooting in that particular spot..

It was not an "accident"- he chose to finish the film the way the way it did. In making a film one often has to change direction due to unforeseen circumstances.