Color of Paradise

The Color of Paradise directed by Majid Majidi is about an blind boy, Mohammad, from Iran. The film contains a mix of melodrama and heart-wrenching moments within beautiful scenes of the Iranian countryside.

The sensitivity in some scenes is extraordinary and surprising. Particularly, when Mohammad finds a fallen chick in a pile of leaves, was a testament to how acute his sense of hearing is. Until the camera actually revealed the helpless bird, I was unsure as to what was happening. At points, Mohammad can be seen moving his fingers through the air and speaking so quietly he cannot be understood. These moments are a testament to how Mohammad understands the language of nature, perhaps more than a person with hearing could.

The beauty of both the artificial color and the raw nature depicted in The Color of Paradise really caught my attention. Seeing the girls and Mohammad's grandmother create dyes and hang saturated fabrics was perhaps my favorite moment of tactile imagery in the film. The variety of topography in Mohammad's world, is stunning. One particular wide angle shot of Mohammad and his father when they first journey back to their village through a field, showed the scope of the world in some ways he cannot experience. Even so, this is low on the list of reasons to feel for Mohammad's struggles.

His father's lack of love is so dissapointing. For such a hard working man, there is a definate conflict between understanding the father's problems and reconciling them with their effect on his own son.

Regarding the ending Stephen Holding in his NYTimes review of the film said that it has a, "wrong-note final image". I'm not too sure of this assessment. I do confess to rolling my eyes a bit at the dramatics of it all because it reminded me of Disney characters being brought back to life by tears or something to that effect. Another criticism might be that the sudden use of computer effects is too big a contrast to the rest of the film, which is more steeped in realism and nature.

Besides that, I found that the final message made sense, as we had been given a taste for the director's beliefs in God with the death of Mohammad's grandmother. Although certainly not as dramatic, she is filled with light and smiles, perhaps because she is greeting God or perhaps, as this image directly follows it, she is thinking of her precious grandson.

Again, I'm ambivalent if it was really 'a wrong-note'. The typical sound-scape of birds and nature is abandoned in the final moments in favor of a sweeping score. In this way, perhaps the filmmakers are ensuring the audience will either be given a positive outlook on the bleak situation or be pushed past the emotional breaking point. My view was entirely positive, although I can't help but wonder if the father's life will either be ruined for good or he'll try to become a better person...

One of my favorite elements of the movie was the terrifying noise in the forest that only the father seems to hear. It is almost like the cry of an animal but it is difficult to place and off-putting. Perhaps it is the supernatural sound of God or the Devil foreshadowing the terrible conclusion to the film. In fact, the first time the noise plays, he is shaving in front of the river, which becomes so central to the film later on. He cuts himself by accident and throws the mirror into the current. Such dreadful implications are a nice mix with the lovely elements of the story like Mohammad's friendship with the girls, and his interaction with the world around him.


-Claudia