I am still confused with the ending?

I think it was a brilliant movie, but that ending just sucked. For me, it just threw out all the previous thoughts my mind was perusing, and just made me laugh. It would have been better to just toss that out completely!

I agree with you 100% about that tacked-on ending, however I thought the rest of the film was a masterpiece.

Read up on Brecht and the alienation effect. It is completely understandable that you, or anyone, would find Kiarostami's ending frustrating. it is, indeed, challenging, but therein lies its value. Does the self-referential conclusion undermine the narrative? Absolutely. But if Kiarostami chose to do that, it is for a reason. Analyze that reason, analyze your own reaction to the ending, and analyze the reasons for that reaction, and you should be able to take something away from the film much more profound than anything the narrative would have provided you if it had have remained in the representational mode that you preferred. Presentational cinema has always received polarized responses, from viewers and critics alike (although critics tend to favor it more than viewers, because critics by nature are more prone to analysis, and analysis is the cornerstone of appreciating this kind of metatextual self-reference). Yes, these kinds of meta-cinematic devices are always challenging, and often frustrating. Godard proved that as early, as often, and as well as anyone. They are challenging because they deny the viewer -- well, they deny the viewer pretty much everything that he wants by instinct. They deny us a definitive, unambiguous finality with regards to the narrative. They deny us the ability to believe what we have just seen was real -- they force us to confront the unreality of the viewing experience -- and as a result, they deny us the emotional response that we might otherwise be able to have, had we been allowed to continue to pretend we were witnessing reality. For all these reasons, this kind of meta-reference is distasteful to many, many viewers, especially viewers who are accustomed to more traditional, representational cinema. Those who are familiar with Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain", or pretty much Godard's entire oeuvre, or Brecht's theater, or Fellini's "8 1/2" or "Intervista", or Altman's "The Player", or, of course, Kiarostami's "Close-Up", are far more likely to respond favorably to it. Because, at first, it is definitely hard to digest. Brecht suggested that this method of obliterating the fourth wall and forcing the audience to recognize the fact that what they are watching is not real -- what he called the alienation, or distancing, effect -- was crucial in terms of forcing the viewer into a "critical, analytical frame of mind". It forces the viewer to recognize his or her own place in the work, instead of allowing us the more traditional, often preferable role of the voyeur -- to see without being seen. That is, of course, a much easier perspective from which to view anything. Whereas to acknowledge the viewer is to make him or her self-aware -- to alienate him or her from the basic, dramatic, fictive qualities of the work, and to distance him or her from the emotional responses that those qualities generally create. So, it very much depends on what you are looking for. Most viewers are looking for an emotionally evocative viewing experience based in a tight, compact, linear narrative. For those viewers, the ending of "Taste of Cherry" will be undoubtedly frustrating. But I can't agree that it wastes the entire film. It alters our perception of it, from the ground up, without a doubt. But there is far too much value in the ideas that Kiarostami's ending conveys to suggest that it ruins the film. It may have ruined the specific experience of viewing the film that you expected and were looking for -- that's understandable -- and that's exactly why we have to ask ourselves, "Why did Kiarostami choose to do this, and what was he trying to convey in doing so?" A lot of solid ideas have been expressed in this thread toward that end, and I personally don't think there's any one, definitive answer to that kind of question. But I have always found that meta-reference does a great deal to enhance a film's overall profundity, and I don't think "Taste of Cherry" was any exception. It definitely forces the viewer into analysis if he or she wishes to appreciate the film -- it makes the film more intellectual and cerebral by nature -- and that's something many viewers don't like. They don't want to have to analyze. But if you're willing to do so, there is much reward here. Furthermore, if you're bothered by the meta-cinematic ending that much, it's easy enough to simply pretend it doesn't exist. After all, it doesn't show us anything we don't already know: that this is a film, and there are crew members behind every shot. The only relevant question is, "Why has Kiarostami chosen to explicitly state this reality of the film?" And the answer is for each of us to find on our own.

I, personally, like the idea of death as a meta-cinematic phenomenon in itself. Couldn't life be perceived as one, massive film, which we are all part of? To die is to leave the diagetic world of the film, to exist beyond its parameters. Our protagonist in "Taste of Cherry" dies, and he wakes up to a world in which he is simply an actor playing a part. To be alive is to be inside of a certain world, a certain reality. And to die is to leave that world, to exist outside the boundaries of that reality. And so I see our protagonist's implicit death at the end of the film as a kind of meta-filmic transcendence. He dies, and departs the world of the film, permanently (as one of the crew members says, "The shoot is over."). And so Kiarostami reveals cinema as a kind of microcosmic representation of life itself, and reveals death to be nothing more than the breaking of that notorious fourth wall.

It's not rubbish at all because Kiarotstami's response is logically flawed and the end of the film is ambiguous (most of his films end ambiguously). That allows us to interpret the end anyway we want.

And I have a new interpretation after watching this lovely film again today - the museum taxidermist (symbolism - stuffing the dead in order to allow them to continue to "live" as an adornment/statue for all to see and appreciate, instead of burying the dead in the ground to disintegrate and be forgotten) strongly resembled Saddam Hussein. I felt that way before, but never thought about what him looking like Saddam could mean.

Our Hussein the Genocidal Invader was ironically telling Mr. Badii to not lay down and die.

Perhaps Kiarotsami was telling Iranians to not lay down and die, to not let their country be razed and ruined by any type of tyranny - political tyranny, economic tyranny (poverty), industrial/environmental tyranny (machinery destroying landscape and plundering natural resources), religious tyranny (strict rules subverting individual thought and action), etc.

Do not lay down and die, do not let the negative power of the world manipulate you into thinking you are better off dead.

And to validate this, Abbas demonstrated with the ending that life is just an acting game, so play and enjoy. Life's just a movie, scenes change, feelings change, suicidal thoughts are a temporary state of mind that can be changed by acting differently,take a break and rest your mind, then jump back into life and fight on.