Rang-e khoda

Plot synopsis:
The story revolves around a blind boy named Mohammed who is released from his special school in Tehran for summer vacation. His father, shamed and burdened by Mohammed's blindness, arrives late to pick him up and then tries to convince the headmaster to keep Mohammed over the summer. The headmaster refuses, so Mohammed's father eventually takes him home.
Mohammed's father, who is a widower, now wants to marry a local girl and is preparing for the wedding. He approaches the girl's parents with gifts and they give him . He tries to hide the fact that he has a blind son because he fears the girl's family will see that as a bad omen.
Meanwhile, Mohammed happily roams around the beautiful hills of his village with his sisters. He touches and feels the nature around him, counting the sounds of animals, and imitating them. He displays a unique attitude towards nature, and seems to understand its rhythms and textures as a language. Mohammed goes to the local school with his sisters and reads the lessons from his textbook in Braille, which amazes the children and the teacher.
Fearing his bride-to-be's family will learn of Mohammed, his father takes him away and leaves him with a blind carpenter who agrees to make him an apprentice. The blind carpenter mentors the boy, who wants to see God. Mohammad says God does not love him and thus made him blind and tells him about how his teacher told him that God loves them more as they are blind, but then asks why God should make him blind if he loves him more. He also tells him that he wanted to be able to see God, to which his teacher had said that God is everywhere and that you can also feel God. The carpenter then just says that he agrees with his teacher and walks away, possibly affected by the boy's words, as he himself is blind.
Mohammed's grandmother is heartbroken when she realizes that Hashem (Mohammed's father) has given him away to a blind carpenter and she falls ill. She leaves the family home but Hashem tries to convince her to stay back, questioning his destiny, wondering why he lost his father as a young boy, asking why God has taken away his wife and cursed him with a blind boy, and asking his mother what she did for him. Mohammed's grandmother faints on her way so Hashem carries her back home. Eventually Mohammed's grandmother dies. The bride's family sees this as a bad omen and the wedding is called off.
His hopes destroyed, Hashem decides to bring him back. The film shows glimpses of shame and pity that Hashem felt for himself and his son all along. He goes back to the blind carpenter and takes back Mohammed. They head for home through the woods. As they cross a small, crudely made wooden bridge over a stream, the bridge collapses and Mohammed falls into the water and is carried away by the strong currents. For a moment his father stands petrified, looking on in shock at the sight of his son being dragged away; he appears to be mentally torn between rescuing him and finally becoming free of this lifelong burden. Moments later he makes his decision and dashes into the river, and is also carried along swiftly by the roaring water, behind Mohammed.
As the film ends, Hashem wakes up on the shore of the Caspian Sea and sees Mohammed lying motionless a short distance away. He drags himself up and stumbles towards Mohammed's body and takes it in his arms.
In the ending scene, Hashem sits weeping over his son's body and looking to the skies. You can hear the sound of a woodpecker, and Mohammed's fingers slowly start to move; perhaps he is "reading" the sound with his fingers as if they are Braille dots. Maybe he thinks the woodpecker is giving clues about "the color of God". Or maybe, he has finally touched God.

Tags: romantic

Review:
His father is a different story and wants Mohammad out of the way so that he can remarry in an arranged ceremony with a woman who doesn't know about his son.
The direction is good, sharing an eye for detail and little daily realities with a talent for the bigger landscapes.Overall this is an impressive and enjoyable film that is beautiful to look at and has plenty to engage the heart.
Majid Majidi, director and writer of the much-acclaimed "The Children of Heaven" has again proven to the world that he is able to demonstrate weighty ideas through simple depictions of everyday life in Iran.
It is about faith and belief, unconditional love and compassion, hardship and hope; and is both powerful and effective.The lead character is a blind 8-year-old boy named Mohammad (Mohsen Ramezani).
We can see and feel both, the beauties of the boy's surroundings, and his own world where touching and hearing replace seeing.The photography is breathtaking as father and son trek home from the busy streets of Tehran into traders' and jewelry shops, then to the green mountains and fertile plains in the heights of northern Iran.
But is he ready to bear the consequences of acting against Granny and the universal laws that govern the relationship between a parent and his offspring?"The Color of Paradise" takes viewers on an incredible journey of faith and love and creates a masterpiece of emotion that is so beautiful in its simplicity and elegance it touches one's heart.
In times of great suspense, the sound of nature (not human-made music) helps its audience through the changing moods.Couple these facts with almost flawless acting, it's hard to compare this film with anything else in its league.
I don't recall ever seeing a child who is as fine an actor as the boy who played Mohammed, and not for a moment did his "acting" ever get in the way of the story.
In one movie Majid Majidi has elaborated on so many themes (life of a gifted blind child, love of granny, the journey of Mohammad's father etc.)that its flabbergasting.I had previously seen The Children of Heaven, and had developed respect for Majid Majidi.
The discerning ability of the child is portrayed as he loves nature and can tell that the hands of his granny are "pure white".There are some other situations which are telling like when the granny leaves her son's home as protest, rescues a fish (metaphorically: his son), puts it into a small pond (this world), but at the same time loses the gift (metaphorically: loses Muhammad) which Muhammad gave her.The sounds of the beast, that the father hears, are also ominous and can be interpreted as the moan of conscience.
So, despite the attachment of others in his family to the boy, he tries to keep the boy permanently at a school of the blind, and then in a woodworking apprenticeship.The sensual vibrant color images in the film--almost surreally technicolor--illustrate the boy's sense of the world.
If you revel in digesting a movie, in savoring its depth, you will fall in love with Majid Majidi's work as I have (CHILDREN OF HEAVEN included).In THE COLOR OF PARADISE, a little boy brings us to that which we often take for granted, to that which he understands using sight in the tips of his fingers.
Little Mohammad is enchanting, a real teacher to those impatient with discovery.Majidi, the writer/director, doesn't force an ending on you; his Iranian style of storytelling allows you to figure out the movie's meaning via hidden, deeply moving detail on the edges of breath-taking cinematography.
Even though this boy is very young, I think that even older age groups can somehow relate to his search for pure love and acceptance, especially from the one being that everyone is blind to (at least physically) -- God.On the surface, the acting may seem somewhat simple, but that makes the underlying message even stronger.
'Rang-e Khoda' displays the beauty through the simplicity of everyday life in Iran.The story revolves around a blind little boy named Mohammed who's been admitted to a boarding school for the blind and now that the summer holidays are about to begin, he eagerly awaits his father to take him home for the holidays.
As a lover of cinema,I find the experience of a Majidi film to be quite precious as they remind me of appreciating the beauty of daily life and nature..
Featuring accessible characters in a land of rolling hills and forests, it's nothing like the usual perception of Iran as endless deserts and religious fanatics.The story is "ashamed father betrays handicapped son," but don't expect any satisfying resolution.
With a few minor exceptions, all characters are remarkably well-portrayed; they are natural and believable.Our misleading digital cable synopsis was "Father sends away his sightless son as apprentice to a blind carpenter," but it's hard to latch onto any other plot point.
The movie is deliberately simplistic in nature, but quite charming and delightful at the same time.The sequence in the beginning where the blind boy rescues a baby bird, climbs the tree and puts it back in the nest is an amazing scene, and says so much about the character in such a short instant.
All the characters in the movie are interesting; there are mainly three - the blind boy (Mohammad), his father, and his grandma.What might be a burden for someone may be a blessing for someone else.
The boy was much more attuned to his surrounding environment than anyone else.There's no actual background music used in the movie, but it utilizes the sounds of nature to tell about the environment, which is even more effective.The ending feels a little contrived, but it's upto satisfaction.
This movie nails you to the film linen like a magnet.It's a holyday for eyes (great photography), hart and soul (great story).
I will never feel the same way about Iran or its people after seeing this moving story about a motherless blind young boy and his sympathetically portrayed, but self-absorbed father.
But I hadn't got any idea until I saw the wonderful movie, "color of paradise", in a Iranian Film Show in Shanghai Film Art Center.It's a beautiful movie.
This wonderful tale of a small blind boy and his relationship to his father, grandmother, sisters and the people around him was an incredible experience.
His awareness of nature and his heightened senses as filmed by Majid Majidi in such a careful and beautiful way invited the audience to participate in everything that affected him.
I didn't just cry, but wept during a very emotional scene where Mohammad breaks down and lets it all out about what it's like to feel so big inside, but be made to live a small, choiceless life only because his father dwells on the shortcoming of his blindness, and not the intelligence and talents he possesses.
The first Iranian movie I saw was "The Children Of Heaven" and I was equally impressed with "The Color Of Paradise".This is a gripping story of a blind boy and his father coming to terms with his blindness.What I get from this movie is that sometimes, you have to close your eyes to truly "see" what is going on in this world.The movie will tug at your heart strings the entire time it's running and the ending will haunt me for years to come..
Child of a Lesser God. Majid Majidi's "The Color of Paradise" is a beautifully photographed, poetic story about symbolism, convention, and normality and about how little we regard those who we ostracized.
"The Color of Paradise" is about two outcasts - the blind boy Mohammad who knows a great deal about suffering but is intelligent enough to compensate for his physical infirmity, and his widowed father who is only beginning to deal with his social infirmity.
Perhaps the opening sequence best epitomizes this tension, as Mohammed is left at blind school waiting for his father and manages to carry a stray bird back to the tree nest while the father arrives, stunned and befuddled at the prospect of having to take his son home.
In his quest to start up a new family, the father wants to jettison Mohammad, not knowing that the boy is uniquely gifted or that his love will only come out when Mohammad's life is in danger.
Mohammed, the little blind boy, in his desire to get closer to his reluctant father, establishes with mother nature a relation of love and fascination.
Color of Paradise was a movie about a little blind boy going to hard times as he grows up.
This film is a perfect portrayal of humanity's search for (re)connection- through relationship with others (in this case the boy's Father)- and finally with something Sacred.This is not a 'feel-good' movie.
If you're in the mood to be entertained, this might not hit the spot.But if you're able to appreciate beautiful art that speaks to the essence of who we are as human beings, you really will be moved by this film.Very well directed and acted, beautifully filmed (it's so visually stunning that you will want to visit Iran after watching it!), and with an amazing soundtrack - one of the things that to this day stayed with me after watching it many years ago is the birdsong when the boy is in the forest.Haunting.
I figured the little boy actor playing "Mohammed" had to really be blind, his performance was so good.This was the first Iranian, actually first middle-eastern-made movie I'd ever seen.
This was not the director's intention of course, but as an american it naturally should have this effect.The story is a sad tale of a son so full of yearning for all life has to offer, yet his father is unable to see what's good and strong about his boy.
I recently watched The Color of Paradise, a film by Iranian director Majid Majidi.
It told the story of a little blind boy whose father didn't want to care for him after his mother's death.
This is the story of a blind boy whose family lives in a small village while he attends a special school in Tehran.
The story focuses on his relationship with his father, who would like to disown the boy because of his disability.I absolutely love this film.
The story of a blind boy, Mohammad, returning home for the summer holidays to his family in the highlands of northern Iran.
The film focuses on the relationship between Mohammad and his family, and in particular his father who bitterly resents his son's blindness.
It is also a study of faith: the father is angry at God for deserting him and for burdening him with a blind son; in a very moving scene Mohammad describes how he has spent his whole life reaching out to God but to no avail.
Who in the United States would dare make a film about a blind boy, his hopes, dreams, sorrows, and family, and about his father, so caught up in himself that his schemes to alleviate the miseries of his life only serve to compound them?Here we see natural life and death, not contrived murder and mayhem, and we are left to think about both the wonders and beauties of life and the great mystery of death.
'The Colour of Paradise' is a fascinating look at life in rural Iran, as "seen" through the eyes of a young blind boy.
The film begins slowly and isn't the slickest movie ever made, but the're's a sense of truth in its portrayal of the world, and its emotional power grows while you watch the story of a man, the boy's father, who through self-pity has lost the capacity to love.
Uplifting story, yet sad at the same time, about a 9 year old boy's Summer vacation with his family in rural Iran, away from his live-in school in Tehran -- the blind school.
This is a beautifully filmed tale of a dysfunctional Iranian family who have been through several disasters, a son who was born blind, a mother who has died prematurely, and a father who wants to get rid of the son so he can marry again.
Strong acting, breathtaking scenery, and an interesting plot characterized the Iranian film, The Color of Paradise, which left me with a new perspective on the culture and beliefs of Iran.
Mohsen Ramezani, the child actor who played Mohammed, carried the film with an amazing performance as a young, blind boy forced to go to school in the city far away from his family because of his disability.
The Colour of Paradise is the story of a blind Iranian boy forced to return to his little farming village in the mountains when the school term (in a special school in Teheran) has come to an end.
A lovely, simple, and heartfelt tale, "The Color of Paradise" is typically Iranian in its telling of a father who wrestles with his conscience as he begins to see his son as a burden interfering with his happiness and success.
Iranian writer-director Majid Majidi, who gave us "Children of Heaven" (U.S. 1999), returns with yet another powerful film, "Color of Paradise" (U.S. 2000).
So much is told simply on their faces: be it joy, sadness, gut wrenching dilemma or misery, wistful bewilderment, and all the nuances of a blind boy's facial expressions (from Mohsen Ramezani as Mohammad.) The cinematography also captured the beauty of the Iranian countryside landscape - its hills, forests, fields, greens and colorful flowers.As the film opens, we are given a sense of being in the dark - black blank screens with only subtitles to the voices we heareventually we see some cassettes and a crowd of youngsters around a man (their teacher)we are at a school for the blind children in Tehran.Besides the various Iranian traditions and livelihood in the villages beyond the city of Tehran, we get to appreciate the language of nature as Mohammad hears it through the rippling sound of river rapids, constant repeats of birds chirping a-calling in the forest, leaves rustling in the wind.
Hmm, anyway, I would like to mention the scene in CHILDREN OF HEAVEN, where the dad take's his son, Ali, in the city-now for those of you fortunate enough to have seen the film in the first place (and those of you who haven't, try anyway) do take the liberty of keeping in mind of what had happened in the last part of that scene: The father and the son couldn't stop the bike and was forced to partake in an accident, and have to go home in a bitter sweet glory, yet when there is suffering-goodness comes out of it, it is very much like the climax of COLOR OF PARADISE.And oh, it just occurred to me, Majidi seems to adore gilded objects in the end of his films..
The easier face of Iranian cinema gets an airing in this film about a blind boy and the tormented father who, incapable of caring for his son, wants only to chart a new road for himself.
While the movie was very well done of showing the surroundings through the "eyes" of the blind boy, it disappointed me with its ending..
The acting from the young blind boy is fantastic, and the film has plenty of sad, emotional scenes which will have your eyes tearing up.On the down side, there is not really much of a story, this doesn't harm the film but equally does not do it any favours either.
"The Color of Paradise" is a story of a struggle, a struggle between a loving son and a father who feels ashamed of what his son is, blind.
The basic theme is the contrast between a self-centred father who wants to be rid of his blind 8-year old son, and the other loving people, his grandmother, his sisters, a teacher and a carpenter who do their best to fill that void with loving attention.Though the father is not physically abusive, he lets the boy know how unwanted and unimportant he is many ways.
You experience it as full of sounds of birds, wildlife and mystery, just as the blind boy Mohammad does.The movie would be suitable for children, except for the terrifying flash flood scene near the end.
However the father finds a blind carpenter a long way away who takes the boy as an apprentice.
Any lover of great cinema needs to see this movie.A blind boy named Mohammed awaits the arrival of his father when his school closes for a three month break.
When we talk about Majid Majidi, some beautiful, life varying and thought provoking movies come into the mind like Children of Heaven (1997), Baran (2001), The Song of Sparrows (2008) & The Willow Tree.I think he is one of the best directors, who have an eminent sense of cinema making, symbolism, metaphors, various shades of life and social dramatic requirement.
Like Angelopoulos's "The Beekeeper" it ends with a shot of a hand, but whereas the twitching hand of the beekeeper subsides as death takes over, that of the blind boy in the Iranian film is a resurrection from stillness into life.
Poignant as the boy's performance is, it is the character of the father and its development that is the core of the film.
It can also simply be a tragic movie about the life of a blind boy but I believe there is more meaning behind it than we would expect it to be.
Either way this is a beautiful movie to watch, from its spectacular shoots to the charismatic little boy who is Mohamed and his truly tragic story of suffering because of his father hate towards him.
Set in Tehran where a little blind boy awaits to be picked up by his father at his special school.