Abbas Kiarostami's 1997 film Taste of Cherry is ambiguous in many ways, the vagueness and openness of the film's content results in a number of possible interpretations; The film has also been ambiguous in the responses and evaluations it draws. This essay will examine two of these responses and interpretations, namely those of Hamish Ford and Jonathan Rosenbaum, postulating that the humanist vision proposed by Rosenbaum is the more relevant of the two. This will be explored further by carefully examining the epilogue (coda) and final scene of the film. In his article titled: Driving into the Void: Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry Hamish Ford argues that the theme, content and narrative (or lack thereof) of Taste of Cherry is “negatively engaging”. He describes the opening of the film as both threatening and enabling and its temporality evokes confusion (Ford, 2012, p.3). For him, Taste of Cherry is destabilizing and supported by a certain violence (Ford, 2012, p.3). He argues that the open denouement that Kiarostami uses in many examples of his work cannot be exclusively positive in the viewer's interpretation of it because of all the things we see and all the things we don't see; to understand it only as affirmative would be a limited response. Ford establishes that, in his view, these conclusions are subversive rather than affirmative in nature (Ford, 2012, p. 29). The protagonist, Mr Badii, is constructed in such a way that it lacks depth and is difficult for the audience to relate to forcing them to have an objective view of the scene provided to them, our emotions should not come into play while watching the final scene and we are forced to consider a range of possible outcomes, many… middle of paper… this change also hints at a much more positive outcome. The fact that Kiarostami left the final scene without a direct conclusion (Mr. Badii enters the tomb and we see the sky as it starts to rain) means that it is open to our interpretation, without the coda I think the film would keep the minimalist look and gloomy. tone that was carried forward in most of its content. However, the dynamic and lively (for lack of a better word) epilogue leaves us with a sense of hope, that life can go on and circumstances can change. Kiarostami said that he finds no distinction between documentary and fiction, so one cannot ignore the context in which the film was made (Rosenbaum, 8). Published in 1997, Taste of Cherry is set, and indeed was created, in post-revolutionary Iran and many of its stylistic, narrative and storytelling choices can be seen to reflect this.