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Customer Reviews of The Color of Paradise

Eyes wide shut.
Shakespearean tragedy, Iranian-style. Majid Majidi's *The Color of Paradise* is a masterpiece, better than his splendid *Children of Heaven* -- though I don't think this film will win over as many adherents as the latter. The subject-matter here is pretty dark and difficult to take, involving the tribulations of a blind boy at the mercy of a struggling father who no longer has the will to provide for him. The movie's theme is refreshingly simple, perhaps even simplistic, having to do with blindness not being merely the absence of functioning eyes, but rather as a state of mind. Majidi provides an easy contrast, showing many scenes of the boy Muhammad listening enraptured to the sounds of nature around him while his dad putters about in sullen, worried self-absorption. Who's really "blind"? The story and its themes feel timeless, as old as humanity itself. The primeval and absolutely stunning location -- a rural and forgotten paradise in the north of the country near the Caspian Sea -- contributes a great deal to this feeling. (The movie is aptly titled.) So, yes -- the story is simple, but in the hands of a master. Majidi has the requisite patience to immerse us in Muhammad's aural and tactile world: the viewer can almost feel the coarse stalks of wheat when the boy runs his hand over them in a field, can smell the perfume when his grandmother pours boiling water on tubs of collected flower petals to make dyes, can believe that the multiplicity of bird chatter is right outside his own house, can see the falling chicken feathers drift down like snow in his own living room. Majidi is good with human nature, too: judicious close-ups of the natural-looking (i.e., real-looking) actors tell their own small stories, mitigating the need for excessive chat or exposition. Or explanation. Majidi's debut, *Children of Heaven", was a film about kids that kids could (and should) watch . . . but *The Color of Paradise*, while about a kid, veers into tragedy as old as Sophocles by movie's end, and as such is not entirely recommendable to children. But don't let that put YOU off: true artists, like Sophocles and Majidi, have the power to give significance and form to human agony. And, as the very last shot of *The Color of Paradise* amply illustrates, the results can be heartbreakingly beautiful, indeed.

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A parable of the lost father and his blind son who sees.
Iranian filmmakers are always going to have a hard time competing with Hollywood in the West. But with "A Color of Paradise", director Majid Majidi (acclaimed and best known for "The Children of Heaven", a story of a brother and sister who share the same pair of shoes) has produced a film that in content, themes and beauty makes a great deal of modern blockbusters look nasty and expensive. In Arabic (with English subtitles), it's the story of eight-year old Mohammad, a blind boy who attends a school for the blind in Tehran. When the school breaks for the summer months, Mohammad's father is the last to pick him up, even then only after trying to have the school keep the boy. His reasons become obvious after he retreats to his home in the Iranian countryside: taking care of his son is a burden in his quest to win the dowry and the hand of a local woman in marriage, and his son is a threat to his own future well-being. As Mohammad enjoys life in the picturesque countryside with his two sisters and grandmother, he is oblivious to his father's plans to get rid of him.

The movie develops a sharp contrast between the boy and his father: despite the fact that he can see, his father is caught up in blind selfishness where he cares only about himself; Despite his blindness, Mohammad "sees" the beauty of life, and is full of wonder at the sounds of birds and the magnificence of creation. As the blind boy reads the Braille alphabet in nature and reaches out to its helpless creatures, it becomes evident that the abandoned baby bird he rescues, as well as the trapped fish and overturned turtle we see are really metaphors of Mohammad's own helplessness before his father. The boy's grandmother is a quiet figure, but she sees both her blind grandson's worth and her son's moral corruption. But can anything save Mohammad's father from his own selfishness? He's already lost his first wife, but now his selfishness threatens to make him lose his mother, his son, and even his future wife. The story switches gears towards the conclusion with some tense drama and action scenes revolving around a broken bridge and a raging river. The stunning ending features a moving closing scene that leaves open lots of questions and is sure to create lots of discussion among viewers.

"Color of Paradise" may lack the big budgets and spectacular effects available to Hollywood - and at times it shows - but on the whole this story has a gentle and poignant beauty that touches the heart. There are many in Western society who have the eyes of Mohammad's father, yet share his inner blindness. For such "seeing" people and for us all, this is a "must-see" movie that may change the way you look at others and at the world. - GODLY GADFLY

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Warning! Do not see this movie.
It will be very dificult to enjoy movies after this one, it is very much above most. I am shure that movie directors and actors will have stop and go back to the drawing board after seeing this movie.Makes holliwood look very bad. By the same director; Baran, and Children of heaven, both very good, but this one is best.