The Concept of Journey in Sufism: Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry as a Cinematic Safar.

Abstract

This thesis explores the intersection of Abbas Kiarostami's cinema and Sufi mysticism, focusing on his film Taste of Cherry (1997). Through a Sufi lens, it explores Kiarostami's expression of a spiritual journey, safar, which is an inward transformation process in Sufi mysticism. Kiarostami's films were investigatedas theoretical and practical embodiments (the physical, the psychological, the social, and the metaphysical) of safar. This thesis employs slow cinema theory and Sufi philosophy to view how Kiarostami's minimalistic cinematic techniques of long takes, lean dialogue, and repetitive narrative structures represent the spiritual search for oneself and divine truth. It demonstrates that Kiarostami's cinematic performance represents the social manifestation of the Sufi path, with the external flight symbolizing the interior process of spiritual purification and transcendence. It contributes to the overlooked discourse on the spiritual and philosophical dimensions of Kiarostami's cinema, offering a new angle in applying Islamic mysticism and Sufi thought to studying film.