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Color of Paradise
Majid Majidi's portrait
of a torn Iranian family is riveting both in scope and emotional texture. At
the center of Majidi's universe is Mohammad (the arresting Mohsen Ramezani),
an eight-year-old blind boy who spends the school year at an institute in
Tehran and then journeys to the highlands to be with his family for the
summer hiatus. As the film opens, Mohammad's father (Hossein Mahjub, the
film's only professional actor) is late to pick up his son and when he
finally does arrive; he is reticent to take possession. At home in the hills,
where life unfolds in small simple strokes, Mohammad is warmly welcomed by
his grandmother and sisters, but his father, a widower, remains
disdainful. He perceives
the boy's handicap as an obstacle to his proposed marriage with a woman from
a strict Islamic family and tries to place Mohammad outside the homestead.
The self-interested action causes a divide and triggers a chain of tragically
fateful events.
Majidi, who impressed
American audiences with "Children of Heaven," makes a visually
stunning film, and yet communicates the lack of sight with sensual
brilliance: be it Mohammad pawing through a pile of leaves to save a
hatchling or a gentle touch applied to his sister's face to measure her
growth. Like Mohammad's ever-reaching fingers, and the soul they bear,
"Color of Paradise" is poetically subtle and offers great rewards.
- TBM
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