A Paradise of Color, Compassion and Sound.

You may find it difficult to rent a quiet, deceptively simple film about a few months in the life of a blind boy–but overcome your resistance and treat yourself to one of the finest films of the year.. A gem. And one of the most beautiful looking films you'll ever see. The cinematography is simply spectacular. The story deeply moving and unforgettable. And yes you'll most likely have to read subtitles (though not that many) unless you speak Farsi.

Although I'm aware the film teeters dangerously close to Spielberg-ian heartstring pulling manipulation, it's also powerful, uncompromising and a film that gets all of its details exactly right.

We meet Mohammad (Mohsen Ramezani) at the school for the blind in Tehran where he resides. We see the students leading each other around, learning how to read and write in Braille, and packing up to meet their parents as the school prepares to close for three months. Mohammad's father is very late. All the other children have been picked up by their parents. The teacher remains positive that the father will arrive to pick Mohammed up. We aren't so sure.

Mohammad gets up off the bench, and wanders off the path, over to a tree. He kneels down and at first it appears he is going to dig a hole in the dirt. But he continues to move the leaves around with his hands. We aren't sure what he is doing. Then he finds the tiny bird that has fallen from it's nest. We watch in amazement as he carefully picks the tiny bird up, and then proceeds to climb the tree and put the bird back into its nest. Mohammed we realize is a very special, gifted and sensitive 8 year old boy-- who just happens to be blind.

Director Majid Majidi finds a wonderful way to let us quickly stop pitying the blind child and come to admire and perhaps understand the character. Several times throughout the film we hear noises, before we see what the source of the noise is. We get close-ups of Mohammed's hand as he feels a creek bed for some stones, or plays with some wheat and begins quietly muttering some letters from the alphabet. He reads with his fingers and memorizes his lessons anyway he can. He has never stopped trying to learn, trying to less of a burden and embarrassment to his father.

Mohammad's father (Hossein Mahjub) reluctantly picks up his son at the school. We learn his wife has died and they will travel to the north where Mohammed's two young sisters and Grandmother live. Mohammed is loved and accepted as a whole person by everyone but his father. His father hopes to get married and sees his son as a weight that drags him down. He feels life had treated him unfairly by giving him a blind son to take care of and by taking his wife away from him. He is trying to win the hand of a women in the village and has been working very hard to raise the dowry and present the gifts necessary to get her hand in marriage. When asked he talks about his two daughters but does not mention his blind son. Perhaps his blind son would be seen a negative omen by his future father-in-law and so he must deny his very existence.

Mohammed is full of life and has a strong connection, even a spiritual connection to everything that surrounds him. He has been told that he is a special person because God particularly loves the blind and since God is invisible and can only be felt, it will be the blind who will feel him
first. Mohammed the young boy wants desperately to believe that but as he comes to realize that his father views him as a burden, he begins to doubt the truth of what he has been told.

The camera lovingly embraces the lush country side of the North Country of Iran. We see the beauty that Mohammed can only see and feel. We get a sense of what it must be like for him to put his overly sensitive fingers into the creek, to feel the Caspian Sea on his feet, to have a butterfly tickle his skin, to hear the birds and animals around him. To know his younger sister has gotten older by touching her face and declaring. . "My you have grown!" And while the camera takes the time to linger on certain shots it does not linger too long. The film almost always remains positive, almost always shows us the good of things.

Almost.

While his father is almost deathly afraid of certain sounds, Mohammed remains curious and calm with everything that is around him. He is full of life, wonder and love in contrast to being full of fear, anger and bitterness.

Majidi has created a ninety minute work which is rich with visual and emotional textures that will stay with you long after the film is over. Much of the film, because of its subject matter has a sadness to it. But like Mohammed the film sees beauty and richness everywhere and reminds us there is much we take for granted–like the beauty and compassion a young blind boy easily ‘sees' and accepts.

NOTE: The film's Farsi title actually translates to The Color of God but the film has been re-titled in English: The Color of Paradise.

Chris Jarmick, Author (The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder-- Available November 2000)