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Wisdom of 'The Song of Sparrows'
Iranian director Majid Majidi said that if "(depicting) poverty guarantees the success of a film, we only need to go to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to make our productions there"
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Iranian director Majid Majidi said that if "(depicting) poverty guarantees the success of a film, we only need to go to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to make our productions there".
He believes that what made The Song of Sparrows and his other productions world-famous was not their portrayal of poverty, but "humanity and wisdom".
Majidi presents in his films what is universal in Iran, an Islamic republic once described by outgoing U.S. president George W. Bush as a member of the axis of evil along with its communist counterpart North Korea.
His films are deeply humanistic, breaking the cultural and political prejudices that have segregated his country.
The Song of Sparrows is his latest production after The Weeping Willow and the Oscar-nominated Children of Heaven.
The film shows how modern lifestyles and urban living are corrupting people's lives, their spirituality and their connections to family and nature, even in a conservative country such as Iran, where strict Islamic values remain dominant.
It follows the life of Protag Karim, a chief ostrich wrangler who is fired for letting an ostrich worth US$2,000 escape. Karim desperately tries to find the big black bird in a vast, hilly savanna but to no avail.
He comes home, jobless, to a wife expecting something to cook, a deaf adolescent daughter whose hearing aid is broken and a na*ve son dreaming of becoming a millionaire by breeding fish in a reservoir.
While he is in Teheran to fix his daughter's hearing aid, Karim is mistaken for an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver and is overwhelmed by the unexpected fortune he rakes in after driving the oblivious passenger to his destination. It does not take long for him to look for another passenger and compete with other ojek drivers.
The competition on Teheran's roads is fierce but Karim is lucky. In the city, he also frequents a construction site where he collects junk that can be used at home and sold to his neighbors.
Teheran quickly changes Karim. In one scene, a little beggar girl approaches him at a traffic light and he wants to give her money, but he has no small change.
As the light is red, he asks for small change from the other drivers but no one wants to help him. As the light turns green, he becomes indecisive and finally leaves the poor girl after putting his money back in his wallet.
At home, he becomes irritable and is preoccupied by the junk he has collected and believes is precious. He is not aware of his change until one day he falls from the top of his mountain of junk, sustaining injuries that make him unable to work.
From his bed, his body aching and powerless, he watches his family, friends and neighbors working earnestly for their living while still caring for him. He then rediscovers his humanity and is happy to learn that the lost ostrich has returned to the farm by itself.
As Majidi said, his film offers wisdom, something that is inherently humane and was for generations conveyed in novels, fairy tales and legends before the cinema was invented.
The film's cinematographic presentation of the rural area where Karim lives is stunning, especially the breathtaking aerial shots when Karim is pretending to be an ostrich while searching for the runaway ostrich.
The serenity of his idyllic house and neighborhood is beautifully contrasted with the hustle and bustle of Teheran through lyrical images and music.
The amateur cast empowers the movie, whose script boasts quite a bit of witty dialogue. The main characters in the film are just ordinary people without the slightest intellectual pretension to comprehending verbally their happiness and misery.
And this is what makes The Song of Sparrows a powerful film: its honest depiction of humanity.
The film shows what wisdom is through its interesting characters and storyline. It does not preach wisdom as in many local films, which usually feature an overdressed religious preacher delivering the same old hackneyed sermon.
In this portrayal, human beings stand between righteousness and wickedness, greed and generosity. And Karim struggles between the two sides in the midst of poverty and ravaging capitalism.
"My movies begin from the heart of the society. One of my concerns has always been mankind and the problems of urban living. And these led me to make The Song of Sparrows,'" Majidi said.
Reza Nazi, who played Karim, won the Silver Bear prize for Best Actor at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival for his praiseworthy role in the film, which will represent Iran at the 81st Academy Awards. It has also won many accolades in its home country.
This kind of film shows you that cinema is more than just an art savored only by incurable hedonistic youth every Saturday night. It is an art that gives you hope for the future of humanity and a sanctuary from the turmoil of modernity.
The Song of Sparrows will screen at JiFFest 2008.
