Blinded by the Light
FILM: The Color of Paradise
DIRECTOR: Majid Majidi
STARRING: Mohsen Ramezani, Hossein Majub
GRADE: A-
|
|
MOHAMMAD (MOHSEN RAMEZANI) PLAYS WITH HIS SISTER HANYEH (ELHAM SHARIM) IN THE COLOR OF PARADISE.
|
In Children of Heaven, Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi made one of
the best films released in New Orleans in 1999. Now he's back with another work
dealing with comparable themes of childhood, economic struggle, familial
connections and religious faith. The Color of Paradise lacks the
narrative drive, crystal-clear themes and universal appeal of its predecessor,
but it's a powerfully affecting and deeply humane film in its own right, very
much worth the thinking movie-goer's attention.
Written and directed by Majidi, The Color of Paradise is the
story of Mohammad Ramezani (Mohsen Ramezani), a blind 8-year-old who is
schooled at a special training institution for the sightless in Tehran.
Mohammad and his peers are taught to read and write in Braille and receive
other regular lessons in arithmetic, geography and the like, and develop skills
in dealing with their handicap. Mohammad loves his school and his kind teacher
(Mohammad Rahmaney), but he's also anxious to return to his distant rural home
for summer vacation where he will be reunited with his father, Hashem (Hossein
Majub), his beloved grandmother (Salime Feizi) and his two cherished younger
sisters, Hanyeh (Elham Sharim) and Bahareh (Farahnaz Safari). Mohammad
therefore is badly upset when Hashem is hours late arriving to escort him
home.
As was true in Children of Heaven, the father is the villain
of this piece. Majidi is sophisticated enough a filmmaker to give both the
father in Children of Heaven and Hashem here in The Color of
Paradise a sympathetic dimension. Both fathers live meager existences,
tormented with worry that they might not be able to provide for their families.
Hashem is a widower who still pines for the mother of his children. But in the
custom of all traditional agricultural people, Hashem believes that he must
have a wife, and he's been in negotiations to marry the daughter (Masoomeh
Zeinati) of a man (Ahmad Aminian) from a neighboring town.
Hashem believes that his prospective father-in-law and bride are less likely to
follow through with the marriage if they learn that Hashem has a blind son,
hence his attempt to leave the boy in the city. But when that proves
impossible, Hashem fashions another plan to apprentice young Mohammad to a
blind carpenter (Morteza Fatemi), who will train Mohammad in woodcraft. Against
his distraught son's wishes, Hashem delivers the child to the carpenter, but
Mohammad's grandmother is so upset with her son that she leaves his house in
dismay, and a series of tragedies ensues.
The Color of Paradise offers a number of wonderful elements,
central among them the appeal of Majidi's protagonist and the striking work of
the young man who portrays him. Like most of the actors with whom Majidi works,
young Ramezani is untrained as an actor, and he really is blind. But what an
expressive face he has, and what a capable youngster he is. With his acute
senses of smell, hearing and feeling, Mohammad apprehends far more of the
texture, complexity and beauty of the world than does his sighted father.
Mohammad treasures frail living things, and we obviously connect
his own condition to his actions when he protects a fledgling bird from a
foraging cat. Mohammad also is an industrious child, meeting the frustrations
of his handicap with an amazing patience and a stout belief in himself. He's
even a bit of a show-off, clamoring to correct his sisters' classmates on
lessons he's already mastered at the school for the blind. A pointed irony in
Mohammad's story is our understanding that he indeed could become a fine and
perhaps even prosperous carpenter, but that he has the intellectual skills and
the drive to accomplish more probing and complicated tasks.
Majidi obviously takes special delight in illustrating the mutual
devotion of siblings. In Children of Heaven, a little boy stands ready
to sacrifice everything he has to get his sister a new pair of shoes. In The
Color of Paradise, the affection between Mohammad and his sisters is
terrifically touching. The world is full of flawed people, but Majidi is
reluctant to cast blame. An American director no doubt would turn the carpenter
into a sinister character, but in Majidi's hands he's a kind and sympathetic
man, one who likely will treat Mohammad better than his own father. And even
though the fathers in Majidi's films are villains, they become so as much
because of harsh circumstances as from inherently evil natures.
For a low-budget production, Majidi achieves two startling visual
effects. In one, representing the departure of a human soul, he photographs a
fog bank rolling up a hillside and into a forest. In a second, he captures two
characters and a horse being swept away in a flood-swollen river. I've grown
entirely jaded at the tricks Hollywood can pull, but this torrent of racing
water scared the dickens out of me. I presume the feat was controlled and safe,
but it sure didn't look that way, which was precisely in the film's service.
The conclusion of The Color of Paradise is both abrupt and
elusive. I can't even say for certain exactly what happens or what the ending
means. Despite the tragedies in the film I wasn't nearly as stirred this time
as I was a year ago. Still, though I might have liked Children of
Heaven better, I like The Color of Paradise plenty enough to
recommend it without hesitation.
|
