Mohammad: "They all run away from me because I'm blind. If I could see, I would go to the local school with other children but now I have to go to the school for the blind on the other side of the world."By Majid Majidi
With Mohsen Ramezani, Hossein Mahjoub and Salameh Feyzi
It must have been around the time that I watched Bacheha-Ye aseman (1997) (Children of Heaven) that I heard about The Color of Paradise but I didn't decide to see it yet, it was only about 2 months ago when I was going through a phase of picking up some Iranian movies that I decided to see The Color of Paradise.
In Tehran, the school for the blind children closes early for the summer and all the parents have come to pick up their child. Mohammad is the only child left and when his father finally shows up, he doesn't go to Mohammad but to talk to the director of the school saying he can't take Mohammad back. The director won't let it happen and Mohammad goes back to the village with his father and is wholeheartedly welcomed by his grandmother and his two sisters. However, the father whose wife died is trying to set up a new marriage with a woman from the village. Mohammad is a burden for him and he doesn't want him around so the family of his potential new wife would accept the wedding. In the mean time, Mohammad is allowed to follow his sister to the local class and impresses everyone by catching up their lesson with his own school book in braille. The father decides to give Mohammad to a local blind carpenter who could take care of him, allowing the father to go ahead and get married.
The Color of Paradise is a moving and emotional movie before anything else. Seeing Mohammad struggle to climb a tree in order to put back a bird back in its nest is really heartbreaking while it metaphors the situation of himself being left out at school with his father nowhere to be seen. There are many scenes like this one, slow and full of meaning in the most simple things of life, like Mohammad reading braille on the rocks at the bottom of a river.
No matter how good these scenes are, a few of them appear to be a little overtly dramatic for no real purpose, the addition of very sappy music and slow motion actually becomes too much. Fortunately, these remain scarce. The relationship between father and son is quite complex but we never know how to feel towards the father whether we hate him for being so cold and trying to put distance from his son or whether we pity him for being so powerless and so indecisively lost.
I think many of the relationships could have been explored further, the grandmother for one, but also the carpenter who genuinely seems to want the best for Mohammad and even though Mohammad might not enjoy the work he would enjoy the company of a skillful and independent blind man, this was cut short by the carpenter's reaction to Mohammad opening up, which made me feel a little hassled. I was moved by the movie but not as much as I was when I was watching Children of Heaven and I think the reason was that in Children of Heaven the children had goals and desires and dreams but in The Color of Paradise it seemed that Mohammad was just moved around against his will and sadly couldn't even buy himself time to enjoy his surroundings, be it his family or birds. It is however a very potent movie against prejudices and a beautiful way to say that even if we're not all born equal, we should respect everyone.
I liked: Moving, touching. Metaphorical. Mohammad's way of discovering everything.
I disliked : Quite sad. Some over the top dramatic effects. The character of the father.
73/100
A moving experience that might leave you perplex or entirely melted.
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