Avaze Gonjeshk-ha: a Face and a Camera
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There’s something batshit insane about Majid Majidi’s The Song of Sparrows (my first experience of Majidi). Don’t get me wrong; I love the movie. It is one of the most down-to-earth movies I’ve ever seen, but it has a sort of manic energy you don’t see in American, or Indian or British, cinema. Personally, I hadn’t seen anything like this before. While both (the best of) Bollywood and Kurosawa have a manic energy, there’s nothing else quite like this.
Most of the magic in this movie comes from the lead actor Mohammed Amir Naji and the camerawork. The former plays a simple, homely man called Karim who has a job on an Ostrich farm, loves his wife non-platonically and has three kids who he loves and scolds. All of that, however, is beside the point. He is basically an oversized kid who understands the concepts of responsibility and sex. He also has hair that magically reflects his mental state. Except that it’s not magical: every time, you can think of a perfectly good naturalistic reason for the state of his hair. His eldest daughter is deaf, and uses a hearing aid, which gets lost in a sludge-infested water storage that has been blocked for a long time when she is helping her brother (the middle kid) clean it up, so that he and his friends can start a goldfish-farm in it. He is an attractive man whose eyes are a match for those of the master of eye-expression – Toshiro Mifune – himself with a mysteriously endearing bulbous hooked nose. The number of shots of his face probably outnumbers all the other shots in the movie (I watched this movie last night, so you can make of this sentence what I will: that’s what stays on in my memory).
The face
The camerawork: this is one of those rare movies (only other I can remember is Three Colours: Blue) where you don’t feel the weight of the camera in the moments when you are looking at the camerawork. It is so simple – so natural, even – that… it looks it. I don’t know enough about movies and camerawork to be able to say any more. There is, in general, an alteration between close shots and beautiful long shots, used often to trick us and manipulate our feelings, but in a way that they aren’t manipulated to non-existence. Watch out, especially, for his last-ditch effort for finding the lost Ostrich.
Wait right here: I said “Most of the magic in this movie comes from the lead actor Mohammed Amir Naji and the camerawork.” This, the fact that they overshadow the story, is certainly the biggest compliment I’ve given Majidi and Naji. There’s an abandoned, blocked water storage outside his house, which is the one his daughter loses her hearing aid in. He, his son and his son’s friends find it, but it doesn’t work anymore. He finds out he has to go to the city, Tehran, to get it repaired or replaced. He goes to work and asks the supervisor – called Ramezan – for an advance on his salary and is refused. He lets an Ostrich escape, and goes around on his motorbike looking for it. He can’t find it, and is fired. He goes to the city, finds out he needs to either wait for four or five months (the girl’s exams are the next month) or buy it on the open market for an astronomical price. He’s sitting on the curb, on his motorbike, when he unwittingly becomes a bike-cab-driver. This is just the set-up. The really magical part of the story are the complications – Ramezan’s leaving for a pilgrimage, the increasing hedonism, his son getting the storage clean, the accident that happens due to his jealousy that makes him an invalid, the visit to the city after the kids buy the goldfish – and the end. I would love to reveal one part of the end, but since enjoyment of movie is more important than enjoyment of review, I won’t.
I should put in a word for the community in which the movie is set. It is the close-knit type in which everyone helps every one. I didn’t make it sound very charming, but I assure you it very much is.
And here’s the best part: I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as I could have. I watched it on the Indian channel UTV World Movies which, despite being a blessing for people like me seeking exposure to undubbed world cinema, has a constant static in the background, a fact which makes every movie devoid of silence (further commendment for the channel: I watched it from beginning to end without any breaks).
Tags: Majid Majidi, mohammad amir naji, Movie Review, persian cinema, The Song of Sparrows, World Cinema
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Interesting you should mention how the weight of the camera is subdued – every Iranian director pursues that – most works of Kiriostami, Majidi, Ramin Bahrani focus on how to remove the camera from the story
UTV World Movies!! -Nice! at a time when IFC here in the US is having a special sunday morning series on “Bollywood”
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My initial reaction to the revelation that these filmmakers are trying to lose the camera was, “But it’s cinema! The camera is important. Without the camera, it’s drama!”
Now I’m thinking that maybe it is sublimeness achieved by coming close to this objective, but not quite there.
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Watch more of Iranian Cinema and you vl get floored away by simple story telling and awesome beauty of frames. They are the best in the business.
Try to catch ‘Sex and Philosophy’ by Mohsan Mhakhblaf , its a movie in painting
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Kudos to World Movies,Majid Majidi and passionforcinema…tell me more, please.
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Kudos! indeed.
Tell you more about what?
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ronak i dont know but i guess u havent seen any of his early works ,u should watch it ,though i found this one the best of all.and do qwatch jafar panahi’s offside, circle.specially in circle where he uses the handheld camera so swiftly and the story flows from one person to another.iranian filmmakers have a lyricism in all of their films and all the subjects are close to simple life in their country
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You’re right, I haven’t seen any of the earlier ones.
As for Jafar Panahi, I just watched the white balloon today. I liked it technically, but I didn’t think the story was touching enough; a few details wrong, like the end.
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and do watch barn,children of heaven ,colour of paradise all by majidi.wen i saw the performance of the kid who played a blind character in the film and i saw our very own ‘black’ i thought oh rani’s acting was so over the top and over rated.
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oh i am sorry the first one is baran
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You missed the wrong a, man. ‘Bran’ would have been a funnier misspelling.
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Thanks everyone for the recommendations. I will certainly check them out.
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The Song of Sparrows is a wonderful movie from Majidi the master.Loved his movies like Children of Heaven and Baran.Thanks to this one I realised that there are ostrich farms and motorbike-taxis in Iran.Movies of Jafar Panahi,Abbas Kiaorostami,Majid Majidi,Mohsen Makhmalbaf all represent the new wave in Iranian cinema- wonderful indeed.Do watch Turtles can Fly by Bahman Ghobadi- simply amazing.
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I simply love this movie! I still have Naji’s face clearly etched in my mind. His helplessness in situations are so damn sad, more because of his face. I was like watching him and only him in the film. On these similar lines, I still can’t get over the lead actor from A band’s visit. I can just look at these faces for hours togather. THeir faces themselves have stories in them. This isn’t acting this is surely something else!!
One of the most heart breaking moments of the song of sparrows was the cene where the fish tank breaks and all the fish lay waterless on the road and then out of of no other option, the kids push them into the gutter filled with water. I had tears in my eyes
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I cried when they released the last fish into the storage, and then when Ramezan came back.
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I loved ur first two paragraphs
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Thanks. :yahoo:
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nicely crafted article…i saw it during film lecs..vry nice film…
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Thanks. :yahoo:
It was a brilliant movie.
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ya gourang its not acting its something else ,n the fish tank scene was amazing ,i dont know why it didnt win an oscar for the film.i saw it last year at the 14th kolkata film fest along wid my friends all of us had tears in our eyes during the fish tank scene.its so simple and yet so charming .yet to see turtles can fly will catch it soon.guys do recommend other iranian films to all of us
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and one thing for all i know the name of the lead actor who plays karim is reza naji not mahhammad karim naji
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I see on imdb that he was credited in this movie as Reza Naji. His real name seems to be Maohammad Amir Naji.
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