The Song of Sparrows
Sher A. Tookhi
The Song Of Sparrows, or (Avaze-gonjeshk-ha), is the newest film by Iranian film director Majid Majidi. Majidi is most famous for classics such as Children of Heaven, Color of Paradise, and Baraan. His movies are about a common man and the struggle and turmoil he faces in his daily life.
In this film, Majidi is focusing on a simple man’s moral dilemma and his vulnerability to compete in the 21st century ‘s city life. The movie starts with Karim, the main character, working in the ostrich farm when his neighbor informs him of his daughter losing her hearing aid in the village well. Karim, played by Reza Naji- one of director’s recurring actors, runs to the well to find the object. He finds his own son and his friends who were looking for the hearing aid. His son has his own fantasy of buying fish and raising them in the well to become very rich.
After finding the hearing aid in a broken condition and lacking enough money to buy a new one for his daughter, another calamity occurs when one of the ostriches from his farm escapes. Karim even goes on top of the hills to capture the big bird but has no luck. He looses his job and goes to the city to repair the hearing aid, when one person sits on his motorcycle and asks him to give him a ride. Karim gets paid for his service. In a way, he finds a new way to make money by using his motorcycle as a kind of taxi. He is very happy with this new job and he learns how to steal clients from another taxi drivers. He also finds out that the city people throw away their junk and makes a deal with the city dwellers bring all unwanted possessions and other items and brings them to his house and puts them in his backyard. In the city, he meets good and bad people. In one scene, for example, a passenger refused to pay him his fare, accused him of cheating, and scared him by calling the police.
In another scene, he prays in front of a big villa and the owner of the house brings him a glass of ice water. While working in the city he becomes a very selfish, rapacious person and looses his sense of community and responsibility towards his neighbors and his children. Mr. Majidi uses a large amount of color in his films, especially in this film where he put more emphasis on the color blue. According to the director, the blue color in Iranian culture represents purity.
Prior to visiting the city, the “blue door” in the film had no value for Karim. But after seeing the corruption of the city life, and after the feeling of owning everything made him such an arrogant person, the door suddenly becomes so important to him. There is another scene of a blue sky full of shining stars, but when the camera pulls back we see a bridal gown that Karim’s wife and his deaf daughter worked. The film gets more serious when Karim has an accident and stays on his bed. Unable to move or work, we see everything’s through his eyes when the camera zooms on his face. We can see that he is rethinking about his priorities.
The scene is accompanied by a pleasant background score by Hussien Ali Zadeh that highlights the emotions of guilt, shame, and surprise. When he sees his neighbors helping his wife, his neighbor offers him money to support his family. There are no special effects in the film except in one shot where the kids, including his son, purchase some goldfish in the city and plan to drop them in the village well.
While sitting on the truck, they realize that the bucket which contains the goldfish has a hole and try to bring the bucket down from the truck to put more water in order for the goldfish to survive. Unfortunately, they drop the bucket and all the goldfish spread on pavement under the hot sun.
The flopping of the goldfish looks like a painting. They have to drop all the goldfish in the canal and let them go, except one fish in which they carry with them in the small plastic bag, and drop it in their village well. In the last shot of the film, we see Karim sitting on his bed and thinking about life when one of his coworker calls him through his front door.
Karim, unable to move apologizes to him , but his coworker has good news for him. We learn that the runaway ostrich had returned back to the farm, and a big smile appears on Karim’s face.
Watching Mr Majidi’s films and his style of storytelling reminds us of India’s Satyajit Ray and Italy’s Vittorio De Sica. I am looking forward to seeing another new film from this great master storyteller.
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ادبی ـ هنری