Rebecca Grass Contributes to a Profound Female Perspective with Taste of Cherry

Taste of Cherry Official Poster
Taste of Cherry Official Poster

It’s impossible to not be affected by Taste of Cherry. Currently in its festival run, this film is receiving much praise and attention for speaking directly to the topical subject of abortion and how it affects women’s view on their identities. Approaching the subject with a deeply personal yet unexpected perspective, Taste of Cherry is profound due to director Xinran Zou and Rebecca Grass of the sound department. These two filmmakers have a long history together and worked closely to tell this story from an undeniably authentic female vantage. Ms. Grass served to manifest the sonic personality of the film (working with composer Scott Johnson to establish the score) which is a prominent catalyst for eliciting the emotion that the film transfers to the audience. Sorrowful, desperate, and deeply insightful, Taste of Cherry is a tale of struggling for belonging in a world that seems to overlook the individual. There are films which are simply too important, too informative, to not be seen; Taste of Cherry is that film. 

Taste of Cherry
Taste of Cherry

 Through the characters of Abby and Ran, the filmmakers begin to explore the connection that we all have, women in particular. Though these young women find themselves in situations which leave them seemingly powerless, they still yearn and strive for some solution or at the very least, a momentary respite. Initially, these two seem quite different. Ran is a woman who is reeling from her abortion, a decision made because the thought of bringing another life into a world that leaves her constantly considering suicide seems cruel. Abby, a transgender woman, is an online cam-girl who is chained to the only means of financial support they have been allowed, acquiescing to society defining them as a sex object. Though their lives seem to share no union, they decide that a trip into the wilderness may provide a recalibration of their perspectives. The exploration is more internal than geographical for both. This film holds more than a few dramatically unexpected twists and reveals. 

Taste of Cherry in Final Mix
Taste of Cherry in Final Mix

  Sound is such a prominent component of this film. It’s a conduit that takes us into the intimate spaces of Abby and Ran as well as the ones they inhabit together. Rebecca Grass painstakingly created these sonically impactful experiences for Taste of Cherry. She imparts, “Aside from gluing the edits, creating the ambience of the story was extremely important. Half of the film is happening in the deep woods and the environment of a forest plays a big role in this film, both visually and sonically. What kind of wind, leaves, birds, the sounds of little animals running away, and at what moment in the story we hear them; these details change the audience’s experience on a cognitive level. Every subtle sound that seems to fall off the back of a truck was intentionally planted like punctuation. Although for certain scenes, like the one in the cave, there needs to be a different approach. While I wanted the cave to sound wet and hollow with rain and thunder in the background, it was important to keep the foreground tight – meaning the audience needed to hear the character’s breathing and clothes rustling so they can feel the presence in their faces. This is done both through sound design and re-recording mixing.  I had 6-10 different rain tracks, thunders and wind hollows panned to different speakers in 5.1, then used reverb and EQ to make them feel more spread out in the space. Imagine that you are in a cave hiding from a thunderstorm, the sound you are hearing is actually layered and from different perspectives. You hear the white noise like rainstorm desaturated by the air from the far distance; you hear the raindrops hitting the leaves of the trees that are near you; you hear the water accumulating in the muddy little pond that’s right next to your feet. You have to pay attention when you hear things in real life in order to decide how the film should sound.” Just perceiving the detail in Rebecca’s description illustrates how each sonic element of this film was created with such intense scrutiny. 

 The two central characters of this film are a modern depiction of circumstances that have challenged women for quite some time. The fact that this story demanded telling speaks to the idea that inequality may progress and digress but never makes the concrete advances it should. Viewing this film is a move in the proper direction.

Writer: Coleman Haan