The Color of Paradise
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Movie Reviews of The Color of Paradise
Movie Review: Gentle and powerful . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
This is another fine film by Iranian director Magid Magidi. In its manner, it seems to reflect issues in Iran's culture (its faith-based adherence to patriarchy, for one), while treating them in what seems to be a gently elusive way, at least on the surface, while appealing at the same time to more universal and deeply felt values that cross national boundaries everywhere. The elusiveness may well result from the heavy-handed control of artistic expression in the Islamic Republic (see Shirin Ebadi, "Iran Awakening") but patience rewards the viewer with what is a thoughtful meditation on the struggle for dignity, personal safety, and a harmonious community life.
In this film, Magidi portrays the plight of a blind boy whose misfortune it is to have a widowed father more selfishly concerned with winning a new wife than providing a loving home for his disabled son. The film is set in the lush, beautiful mountains north of Tehran and bordering the Caspian Sea. It celebrates village life and takes time to show us time-honored occupations - carpentry, making charcoal, and dying lambs wool - as well as the traditions of courtship, where marriages are arranged by the bride's family. The self-pitying father, with the power he wields in a patriarchal culture, eventually learns too late that all of his actions have created a tragedy that for the viewer is shocking and heartbreaking.
The performances, especially by the blind boy who plays the son, are riveting. The photogrpahy cries out for a big screen, and the sound is richly enhanced to emphasize the boy's heightend sensitivity to birdsong. The closing sequence involving a flooded stream is unforgettable.
Movie Review: The beauty of Iran we don't see! This is a gem.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a story of two worlds, one through the eyes of a blind young boy and the other of his widowed father. The blind boy's existence is the beauty and nature that he connects with, and of course, a Granny and two sisters who love him. The other side is the self-pity, misery and selfishness that lives within his father.
Mohammad attends a school for the blind and for the 3-month break, his father almost doesn't come to pick him up, and arriving late, he asks the school to keep his son. They cannot do it.
The boy comes home to his endearing grandmother and two sisters, only to have his father plot to give the boy away because father feels so burdened as a widow, and can't bear the thought of more misery by caring for a blind boy the rest of his life.
It's Granny who recognizes the selfishness of the father and isn't concerned how the blind boy will make it through life, she worries about his father. He breaks down easily, is lonely, and miserable man who wants to marry a woman. Surely, the boy is in his way now.
This is an outstanding cast, from the father, Granny, and surely the performance of the boy is actually blind. The scenery is beautiful.
Director Majid Majidi's most popular movie shown in the U.S. is The Children of Heaven where two children learn to share one pair of shoes at school rather than impose on their poor family for new ones. I recommend this one also. .... Rizzo
Movie Review: Six Stars Minus One
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is searingly true to its title. The beauty of the Iranian countryside, the lush colors and the heightened sound effects are indescribable. The irony of all that beauty? The main character is a blind boy. You feel the true depth of Mohammad's tragedy as he lives surrounded by paradise but unable to see it. Still, he is more connected to nature and the wonder of his remaining senses than the adults who surround him.
Or, more to the point, than his father. With every furtive look at the boy, the father, Hashem (played chillingly by Hossein Mahjub), gives the gut-wrenching impression of a parent who wants to dispose of his own child. My belly was in continual knots of fear as I watched Hashem shunt this burden out of his life and then back in again, only to invite the ultimate disaster.
My stomach didn't unknot for at least 30 minutes after the climax of the film. The climax was more frightening, to me, than the horror flicks people watch to scare themselves. It was so frightening because by that stage Mohammad had well and truly burrowed into my affections.
The redemption scene at the end of the movie is the one thing that spoils this film. I gave THE COLOR OF PARADISE six stars for superior filmmaking but took back one star for the unsatisfying and melodramatic ending.
Mohammad is played by Mohsen Ramezani with extraordinary depth. His sisters give sincere meaning to the word adorable, and the granny is precious. This movie will stick in my mind's eye for a long time to come.
Movie Review: Beautiful, though sad movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I have seen many great Persian movies, but this would have to be the best one! The acting and story are both really great, which surprised me because I usually don't like touchy movies with less action.
The movie is about a handicapped but gifted young boy named Mohammed. Although he cannot see, he feels and listens his way around the places he goes. His father sees Mohammed's disability as more of a frustration coming in the way of his own happiness more than anything, and basically tries to get rid of him. While his father is in pursuit of material joys and a certain woman's hand in marriage, Mohammed is interested in the beauty of nature as well as the joys of learning, inside and outside the classroom.
There was a point in the story when Mohammed makes a speech about his feelings and finding God, and that was probably one of the saddest movie moments I have ever seen in my life. I cried so much, I had to pause the DVD for a while to get myself together. I would definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a sad, poignant movie. And it's a refreshing look at a country we mostly hear negatively about in the news these days. You don't have to be Persian or comprehend a word of Farsi to appreciate this movie. The English subtitles are adequate, and I believe there are other language subtitle options as well.
The ending is slightly ambiguous, but I've found a lot of Farsi films to be that way. It certainly doesn't take away from this captivating movie.
Movie Review: What color is God?
Summary: 5 Stars
As someone else pointed out, the correct translation should have been 'The Color of God'. I believe Mohammed saw colors to which the rest of us are truly blind.No leading men, no mud-adorned nymphs wallowing in the wild, no swelling sound track, no special effects, no pathetic plot that becomes painfully obvious after the first five minutes...
The director of this movie knows how to tell a story. And tell it very well.
This movie made me cry several times, which is something I almost never do. It made me love and respect a little boy so full of life that he gave a little of himself to everything he touched. I didn't hate the father, I grew to have compassion for him because he was weak and full of fear. The fear speaking in his eyes as he watched the current take his little son away, the fear saying 'please die for me, it will be so much easier if you die now...'.
The grandmother spoke volumes with her eyes. When she stood watching her grandson tyring to hide from her behind a tree, you could so clearly share her love. When Mohammed touched her, feeling her face, then her hands, there was a communication that needed no words. When Mohammed started crying because he wanted to go to school with his sisters, she said 'Please don't cry. I would die for you.' I believed her.
I wanted the movie to go on after the ending, but I realized that it stopped exactly where it should have.
Maybe some of our directors will see this movie and learn something...