Director: Dariush Mehrjui
Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Homayoun Ershadi, Mohammad Reza Shaban-Noori, Nematollah Gorji, Sasan Bagherpour
Derakht Golabi (The Pear Tree) is a 1998 Iranian drama-romance film directed by Dariush Mehrjui, one of the founding voices of the Iranian New Wave. Starring Golshifteh Farahani and Homayoun Ershadi, the film weaves together personal reflection and the quiet rhythms of provincial life into a meditation on time, loss, and renewal.
What is Derakht Golabi about?
A middle-aged man returns to his family home and finds himself drawn into long, unhurried days spent in the garden. At the center of his attention is an old pear tree that has stopped bearing fruit — a presence that quietly mirrors his own sense of stagnation and unfulfilled longing. As seasons shift around him, he grapples with questions about what it means to live fully, to love, and to accept the passage of time. The people who move through his world — family, a young woman, old acquaintances — each carry their own weight of hope and regret, and through them the film sketches a tender portrait of ordinary human experience in a small Iranian town.
The K-Time take
Mehrjui shoots with characteristic patience — long takes, natural light, and a camera that lingers on faces and landscape without hurry. The pear tree earns its symbolic resonance not through heavy-handed metaphor but through sheer accumulation of quiet moments. Farahani, in an early performance, brings a luminous presence that contrasts with Ershadi's restrained, inward sadness, and together they ground a film that could have drifted into abstraction in something warm and genuinely felt.
Cast & crew
Dariush Mehrjui directs, adding Derakht Golabi to a career that includes landmarks of Iranian cinema. Golshifteh Farahani appears in one of her earlier roles, already demonstrating the expressive range that would later bring her international recognition. Homayoun Ershadi, known internationally for his work with Abbas Kiarostami, anchors the film with characteristic quiet intensity. The supporting cast includes Mohammad Reza Shaban-Noori, Nematollah Gorji, Shaghayegh Farahani, and Sasan Bagherpour.
Context & significance
Made in 1998, Derakht Golabi sits within the rich tradition of contemplative Iranian cinema that prizes stillness and symbolic depth over plot momentum. Mehrjui had long been a bridge figure — intellectually rigorous yet emotionally accessible — and this film continues that lineage. For diaspora viewers, the film carries a particular resonance: its imagery of a garden, a family home, and a tree that no longer yields fruit speaks directly to feelings of uprootedness and longing that Persian-speaking communities abroad carry. It is a film about waiting for something to bloom again, and that theme travels well beyond its provincial Iranian setting.
Where & how to watch
Derakht Golabi is available to stream on K-Time in original Persian audio. Watch on the web, your TV, or your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and no extra download required. Start and cancel anytime.