Majid Majidi

Rang e Khoda/ Color Of Paradise (1999) is a moving parable that hides layers of meanings. On the surface, it is lyrical and almost oneiric film that sets the tragic story of a peasant's ordeal against the background of a lush countryside. Nature's beauty turns into man's greatest and fatal enemy, while what initially looked like the tragedy of a child slowly mutates into the tragedy of an adult. Everything in the film is different from what it initially seems to be: the cruel father turns out to be a Shakespearian figure, a good hard-working man who has been the victim of an unfair destiny, and the natural wonders of the countryside turn out to be the trap that cause his greatest misery. The man loses everything: his mother, his betrothed, his son and his faith in god. He will be alone for the rest of his life, with nobody to support him when he gets old. At the same time the film is the tender and metaphysical story of an almost miraculous child, whose prodigious intelligence allows him to read Braille texts faster and better than children read with their eyes. This blind child develops a keen affection for nature, and turns the sense of touching into a sense of penetrating the divine essence of things. His epic is completely different. As people shun him, including his own father, he gets closer and closer to god. He literally "reads" god in everything he touches, whether sand or feathers. When he lies dead in his father's arms, we see his fingers moving: he's reading god. His father's story is a story of moving farther from god. The child's story is a story of moving closer to god. Nature is the father's nemesis, nature is the child's paradise. Another nuance in the film is the relationship of the two men with the women (sisters and grandmother): the father, who supports the women, is not loved, merely respected; the child, who loves them even if he cannot help them materially, is loved by them and loves them. They are part of nature, cruel to the father and paradise to the child. Finally, there is the loud noise that the father hears whenever he thinks of getting rid of the son. The father is scared when he hears the noise, as if he was hearing his own thoughts. The film begins with a motto: "You are both seen and unseen". Mohammad is one of the pupils in a school for handicapped children . He is blind and he has learned to read the Braille alphabet. School's over and the children dress up and pack. Their parents come to pick them up. Everybody except Mohammad's father. The teacher tries to reassure Mohammad, who feels abandoned. While he waits, Mohammad plays in the garden. He finds a young bird that fell from the nest. Mohammad climbs the tree and puts the bird back in the nest. His fingers always touch things, like he was reading a Braille message in everything. The father has arrived and watches the child without speaking. Then he walks inside the school and begs the teacher to keep the child, as he has no time to take care of him and the mother died. The teacher explains that the school is now closed and there is nobody who can help him solve his personal problems. The father takes the child back home on a long journey through the countryside. They live in a village surrounded by green hills. The child is happy to be back home. Even if he doesn't see, he starts running towards home and is particularly excited at the idea of hugging his grandmother. The little sisters are also happy to see him and they take him to the farm, where their grandmother is working. The old woman is moved by the grandson, whom she obviously loves very much. Mohammad is a good child, who loves everybody and is happy to be back among the people who love him. The only one who doesn't show any affection is his father. While he is shaving, he hears a loud noise of a bird and cuts himself. The father's plan is to marry again. He is in love with a girl whose parents he courts with visits and presents. A wife would solve his problems. The father works very hard around the house and the farm. He is the only useful man in the family, as Mohammad is blind. Mohammad enjoys his vacation. He listens to the woodpeckers and his fingertips are always touching things. And of course he plays in the fields with his sisters. When they go to school, he cries because he wants to go with them, and his grandmother begs the teacher to take him. The teacher welcomes him in the humble room and is shocked to find out that Mohammad can read better than the other children (they all look over Mohammad's shoulder while his fingers scan the Braille text). Notwithstanding Mohammad's success, the father gets very angry when he learned of this escapade: Mohammad has to qualify as an handicapped child, otherwise the institute will not take him back next season. He decides to take him away from the grandmother. So the child has to follow the father to the beach, where the father is employed with other men. They camp in the nearby wood. The child plays with the sand and talks to the seagulls. In the evening the father sees Mohammad walk in the wrong direction and doesn't stop him... again we hear the loud noise... but then someone sends the child back. His idyllic life with the sisters and the grandmother comes to an end when the father takes him on another long trip, this time to a blind carpenter who has accepted to train him in the profession. The child can finally confess his mood to someone who understands him. Mohammad knows that society shuns him and his only comfort is that he can read god in everything with his fingertips. Upon returning to the farm, the father meets the hostile look of his mother. In vain he explains that he is a lonely man, victim of so many tragedies. The old woman walks out under the rain and leaves the farm. The man chases her and convinces her to come back, but the mother will not speak again, only pray in bed. When the father offers to bring back the child, the mother tells hims that she's worried for him, the father, not for the child. Then she dies. The child feels it in the air, as if the birds told him, or the mist told him. This is considered bad omen and after the funeral the father of the betrothed cancels the wedding. The man has to carry on, alone. He goes to fetch Mohammad, and the child is not happy to see him. We hear again the loud noise. The two travel back to the village with a horse, in a landscape enveloped in mist. While crossing a bridge, the bridge collapsed and the horse and the child fall in the water. The father's anxiety seems to be mainly for the horse, but then he realized that the child is being carried away by the rapids. The man jumps in the rapids and slides down, in a vain chase of his son. The man wakes up on the beach. The corpse of his son is nearby. The father cries as he hugs the corpse. We see that the fingertips are still moving, as if the child is reading something in the air.

Color Of Paradise (1999) e' una toccante parabola che nasconde strati di significato. Sulla superficie il film e' ricco di sentimento e onirico e narra la storia tragica di un contadino e della sua sofferenza ambientato in una lussureggiante campagna La bellezza della natura si trasforma nel piu' grande e fatale nemico dell'uomo mentre cio' che inizialmente sembrava la tragedia di un bambino lentamente diventa la tragedia di un adulto. Nel film tutto e' diverso da come sembra essere all'inizio: il padre crudele si trasforma in una figura shakespeariana, un buon lavoratore, vittima di un destino ingiusto, e le meraviglie naturali della campagna diventano la causa del suo piu' grande tormento. L'uomo perde tutto: la madre, la futura moglie, il figlio e la fede in dio. Restera' solo per il resto della sua vita, senza nessuno che possa aiutarlo quando diventera' vecchio. Il film e' nel contempo la storia tenera e soprannaturale di uno straordinario bambino la cui prodigiosa intelligenza gli permette di leggere un testo in Braille piu' velocemente e meglio di quanto i bambini normali sappiano fare.Questo bambino cieco sviluppa un affetto profondo per la natura, e trasforma la sua capacita' di toccare in quella di penetrare fino all'essenza delle cose. La sua epopea e' diversa. Se la gente lo emargina, incluso suo padre, egli si avvicina sempre di piu' a dio. Egli "legge" letteralmente dio in tutto cio' che tocca, sia che si tratti di sabbia o piume. Quando si trova tra le braccia del padre si vedono le sue dita muoversi: sta leggendo dio. La storia del padre e' una storia di un allontanamento da dio. La storia del bambino e' una storia di un avvicinamento a dio. La natura e' la nemesi per il padre; la natura e' il paradiso per il figlio. Un'altra sfumatura del film e' la relazione dei due personaggi con le donne (le sorelle e la nonna): il padre, che matiene le donne, non e' amato da loro, ma soltanto rispettato; il bambino che le ama anche se non puo' aiutarle concretamente, le ama ed e' corrisposto Esse fanno parte della natura che rappresenta crudelta' per il padre e paradiso per il bambino. Alla fine, il padre sente un forte frastuono mentre pensa di liberarsi del figlio. Il padre e' spaventato da quel rumore come se stesse sentendo il flusso dei suoi pensieri. Il film inizia con un motto: "Tu sei visto e non visto". Mohammad e' uno degli alunni di una scuola per bambini disabili. E' cieco e ha imparato a leggere l'alfabeto Braille. La scuola finisce, i bambini si preparano e raccolgono le loro cose. I loro genitori vengono a prenderli. Tutti tranne il padre di Mohammad. L'insegnate tenta di rassicurare Mohammad, che si sente abbandonato. Mentre aspetta, Mohammad gioca in giardino. Trova un uccellino che e' caduto da nido. Mohammad si arrampica sull'albero e rimette l'uccellino nel nido. Le sue dita continuano a toccate le cose, come se egli leggesse un messaggio Braille in ogni cosa. Il padre arriva e osserva il bambino senza dire nulla. Poi entra nella scuola e supplica l'insegante di prendersi lei cura del bambino, in quanto l'uomo non ha tempo di badare a lui dopo la morte della madre. L'insegnante spiega che la scuola e' ormai finita e non c'e' piu' nessuno che possa aiutarlo a risolvere i suoi problemi personali. Il padre porta il bambino a casa attraverso un lungo viaggio nella campagna. Vivono in un villaggio circondato da verdi colline. Il bambino e' contento di essere tornato a casa. Anche se non puo' vedere, comincia a correre verso casa particolarmente eccitato all'idea di abbracciare la nonna. Anche le sue sorelline sono felici di vederlo e lo portano alla fattoria dove lavora la nonna. L'anziana donna e' commossa nel vedere il nipote, che indubbiamente ama molto. Mohammad e' un bravo bambino, che ama tutti ed e' felice di essere tornato dalle persone che lo amano. L'unico che non mostra alcun affetto e' suo padre. Un giorno mentre si stava radendo il padre sente un forte frastuono di uccelli e si taglia. Il progetto del padre e' quello di risposarsi. E' innamorato di una ragazza e egli corteggia i genitori con visite e regali. Una moglie risolverebbe i suoi problemi. Il padre lavora molto duramente tra casa e fattoria. E' l'unico uomo della famiglia che possa rendersi utile, poiche' Mohammad e' cieco. Mohammad si diverte durante le vacanze. Ascolta i picchi e con la punta delle dita tocca ogni cosa. Gioca anche nei campi con le sue sorelle. Quando loro vanno a a scuola, lui piange perche' vuole andare con loro, e sua nonna supplica l'insegnate di tenerselo. L'insegnante lo ospita in una stanza modesta e rimane stupita nel vedere che Mohammad sa leggere meglio di ogni altro bambino (tutti restano li' a osservare Mohammad mentre scandisce con le dita un testo in Braille). Nonostante il successo di Mohammad, il padre si arrabbia molto quando viene a sapere della sua fuga: Mohammad e' un bambino disabile, ma l'istituto non lo riospitera' piu' la prossima stagione. Il padre decide di portarlo via dalla nonna. Cosi' il bambino deve seguire il padre sulla spiaggia, dove lavora insieme ad un altro operaio. Si accampano vicino al bosco. Il bambino gioca con la sabbia e con i gabbiani.Una sera il padre vede Mohammad camminare nella direzione sbagliata ma non lo ferma... di nuovo un forte frastuono... ma qualcuno riporta indietro il bambino. La sua vita idilliaca con le sorelle e la nonna finisce quando il padre porta il bambino a fare un lungo viaggio, questa volta pero' da un carpentiere cieco che accetta di insegnargli il mestiere. Il bambino puo'alla fine confessare il suo stato d'animo a qualcuno che lo capisce. Mohammad sa che la gente lo emargina e il suo unico conforto e' quello di poter leggere dio in tutto cio' che tocca con la punta delle dita. Al suo ritorno alla fattoria, il padre si scontra con l'ostilita' della madre. Egli spiega invano di essere un uomo solo, una vittima di infinite tragedie. L'anziana donna esce sotto la pioggia e abbandona la fattoria. L'uomo la insegue e cerca di convincerla a tornare indietro, ma la donna non parlera' piu', preghera' soltanto nel letto. Quando il padre si offre di andare a riprendersi il figlio, la madre confessa di essere preoccupata per lui, il padre, non per il bambino. Poi muore. Il bambino lo sente nall'aria, come se gli uccelli o la nebbia glielo avessero riferito. Questo fatto e' considerato di cattivo auspicio e dopo il funerale il padre della futura moglia annulla il matrimonio. L'uomo dovra' tirare avanti da solo. Va a cercare Mohammad ma il bambino non e' felice di vederlo. Si sente di nuovo un forte frastuono. I due ritornano al villaggio a cavallo, in un paesaggio avvolto dalla nebbia. Attraversando il ponte, quest'ultimo crolla e sia il cavallo che il bambino cadono nell'acqua. Il padre sembra piu' preoccupato per il cavallo che per il bambino ma poi si accorge che il bambino sta per essere portato via dalla corrente. L'uomo si tuffa nel fiume e scivola giu', nel vano tentativo di rincorrere il bambino. L'uomo si sveglia sulla spiaggia. Il corpo del bambino vicino a se'. Il padre piange mentre lo stringe tra le braccia. Si vedono le dita del bambino muoversi, come se stesse leggendo qualcosa nell'aria.

Baran (2001) The mystical overtones of Color of Paradise are retained in Beed-e Majnoon/ The Willow Tree (2005) , but the setting is urban and the protagonist is a middle-aged man. The destiny is also upside down: this time the blind regains his eyesight, and instead of touching divine goodness he witnesses human evil, especially inside himself. God's gift becomes a temptation that destroys. The man says very little to help understand his thoughts. The film is mostly a wordless journey into the obscure and terrifying labirynth of the human psyche. A 45-year-old university professor of litearture, Youssef, who can only communicate in the language of the blind, is a scholar in the poetry of Rumi. He has a loving wife Roya who types for him and a loving little daughter. One day the wind blows away the papers that he is reading. His wife rushes to collect them in the garden. He tries to save the ones still on the table but the collapses. Later we see his wife staring at him lying on a hospital bed. He talks to God in angry terms: he has already taken from him the beauty of the world and now he's sending him this illness. An uncle arranges for the professor to fly to France where a friend will help get a test and an operation. The test reveals a dangerous tumor under the eye. The test brings encouraging news: the tumor is benign and a cornea transplant should be possible and the professor would be able to see again. Another Iranian patient at the same clinic befriends him, Morteza, and takes him for a walk in the woods. The professor now thanks God for not having abandoned him. The operation succeeds and the professor flies back home. A festive crowd welcomes him at the airport. He is so moved that he stares petrified at all those faces. He doesn't seem happy though. He has to relearn everything (presumably even the faces of his wife and his daughter). He looks at everything with a look in between melancholy and puzzled. On the subway he spots a pickpocket stealing a wallet and doesn't react: the pickpocket winks (as if thanking him) and runs away with the wallet. He is rude to his wife and quits his job at the university. His wife invites him to help them at the school for the blind but, when he walks into a class and sees all those blind children and the blind teacher, he runs away panicking. His wife sees that he is still reading braille even though he could read normally. While his wife and daughter are outside seeding the flower garden, the phone rings and he hears on the answering machine the voice of a young relative of his wife, Pari, asking about the thesis she left for the professor to read it, but he doesn't pick up the phone and doesn't return the call. We see him literally disappear at the end of a day of wandering around as he walks up a staircase in the dark. He seems physically attracted to Pari. He waits for her in the rain with her thesis and a red rose but then hides when he sees her with a male companion. He walks away slowly alone. What he doesn't know is that his wife has followed him and has witnessed the whole scene. His wife leaves with their child after telling his mother. His mother now confronts him, and in a fit of rage he yells at her that he is tired of the life he used to live, a life confined to his family and his house, and that now he wants to live a real life. His mother leaves him too. He was happier and made everybody happier when he was blind. He sees Pari in the subway but doesn't talk to her. His heartbroken mother is taken to the hospital. His uncle scolds him and invites him to join his jewelry workshop. The former professor has been doing nothing at home since the operation. Instead, when he gets home, the former professor throws all his books and manuscripts out of the window and then sets fire to them as well as to the family photos. Then he notices something in the ashes: a letter written to him by Morteza. Morteza is going blind and tells him how many beautiful things he can see now that he's getting blind. Suddenly the professor's eyes fail and all he sees is black. He lost his eyesight again. His uncle tries to reassure him that another operation will solve the problem, but an ever more unpredictable professor gets off the car in the middle of a congested road and walks away, physically pushing aways his uncle while hitting cars right and left. He falls into a ditch and continues walking all wet and filthy through the crowded streets of the city. It gets night, it starts raining. He falls crying to the ground. He walks back home in the middle of the night and tries to salvage his briefcase from the pond where he threw it. It contains the manuscript of Rumi's poems in braille. He reads with his fingers the lines in which the poet begs God for a second chance. An ant crawls slowly across the page. Avaze Gonjeshk Ha/ Song of Sparrows (2008) is a simple allegory, but delivered with the usual empathy for the plight of ordinary people. The ostrich represents the innocence of the protagonist, a good hard-working family man who one day loses it and slowly turns into a different man. He finds the ostrich again when he finds his innocence again, and that involves a personal accident that confines him to his bed from which he can see the world around him. Karim, a worker at at an ostrich farm, is busy as usual with the animals when a friend tells him to go home because his daughter lost her hearing aid in a cistern. Karim rides his motorcycle home and finds a lot of kids in the cistern. His little son Hussein is one of them: they think they can find fish in the filthy water of the cistern. They look for the hearing aid until they find it. The girl, Haniyeh, pretends that the hearing aid is still working but the father easily finds out that she is lying. Now he needs money to have it repaired in time for Haniyeh's exams that are coming up. His little son, meanwhile, tells him of a project to clean up the water of the cistern and then throw goldfish into the water so that the fish will multiply quickly. Karim scorns the idea. One of the ostriches escapes from the ranch. Karim rides his motorcycle all over the semi-desertic land and eventually finds it. Karim wears a camouflage to look like an ostrich himself, but the animal does not fall into the trap. When Karim returns to the ranch, he finds his belonging already packed outside the front door: he has been fired. He brings gift to his family and pretends that he quit because he didn't like his job, Then he travels on his motorcycle to the capital to see if i can have the hearing aid repaired quickly. On the way he picks up a man whose truck broke down. The man tells him that ostrich eggs have been spotted on the hills. In the capital Karim is told that it will take four months to fix his daughter's hearing aid. His other option is to buy a used one, but it is too expensive for him. As he walks out of the building, a businessman mistakes him for a motorcycle taxi and gets on his motorcycle. Karim rides him to his destination and realizes that he can make money just taking people from one place to another in the big city. The following day he does it nonstop, meeting all sorts of poeple. Some are just very busy businessmen, some are scoundrels. He also found out that in the city there are many construction sites where valuable material is being dumped and, on the way home, he loads his bicycle every night. He gets very busy but still finds time to say his prayers. An ostrich in a shop reminds him or the loose ostrich who must be roaming the desert. His son and the other children are indeed cleaning the cistern. When Karim catches them, he gets mad at them. But the child is stubborn. One day he gives a ride to a wealthy man who is moving into a a multi-storey house, and then drives home with even more stuff on his bike. Every day he brings home something so the house becomes a warehouse. And he becomes selfish: when his wife gifts a door to a neighbor, Karim rudely walks there and takes the door back, causing his wife to weep of shame. One day he has a chance to steal a refrigerator, he can't resist the temptation and tries to sell it. He fails, and then, upon seeing a truck full of ostriches, he returns it, but obviously he is no longer so innocent, and, in fact, later he cheats a street girl of little change. He has forgotten about his daughter's hearing aid, that was the whole point of making money. On the way home he catches his son and his friends selling flowers on the highway, and even his deaf daughter is there. They are trying to raise money to buy fish for the cistern. Karim, furious, grabs a pick and is about to destroy the cistern but then he stops, amazed that the children did clear the water. He forgives his children but keeps accumulating stuff in the courtyard. One day the whole giant pile of garbage collapses on him and breaks his leg. Lying in bed, he hears that a neighbor found an ostrich egg behind her house. He is moved to tears by how affectionate his extended family is. His little son is now the breadwinner, working in the fields with the other children. One night Karim overhears his son begging his mom to let him buy the fish that a man is about to sell. The children get the fish that they have wanted all the time. The fish are in a barrel when the children deliver some plants to a nursery. The children have to throw away the plants in order to get to the barrel, and Karim shouts terrified that they are destroying the precious merchandise (but can't move because his leg is still bad). The children try in vain to salvage the barrel but instead drop it and it breaks, releasing all the fish on the street. The children stare heartbroken as the fish start dying on the asphalt. Their dream is shattered. They start crying. Then Hussein starts sweeping the fish towards a nearby ditch so that they won't die. They keep only one fish in a plastic bag. Karim, proud of them, makes the children smile as they drive back in the truck. When they reach home, the children run immediately to the cistern and release the one and only fish they still have. Karim is still confined in his room. One day he sees a sparrow that has been trapped inside the house and crawls to open the door for it. His old friend and coworker comes to visit him and tells him that the ostrich has been found. Karim is transfixed. When his leg heals, Karim rides the motorcycle to the ranch and stares at the ostriches and smiles.