THE COLOR OF GOD (1999)
"God is not visible."
3 out of ****
Original Title: Rang E-Khoda Starring Mohsen Ramezani, Hossein Mahjub, Salime Feizi, Elham Sharifi; Written & Directed by Majid Majidi; Cinematography by Mohammad Davudi
The children in Majid Majidi's films seem to exist, at times, in a state of grace, an earthly Eden where their experience of the world is whole and uncorrupted. Their perceptions are not filtered through politics, sexuality, economics, prejudice, or other adult concerns. The world is there, and they are in it--they ask for no more. Their actions are motivated by love and selflessness, by reverence for creation. They are, to borrow the title of Majidi's previous work, the children of heaven.
Such is the case for Mohammad, a young boy who happens to be blind, but whose other senses are keenly attuned to the sounds and smells and surfaces around him. His teacher once told him that God favours the blind, and while Mohammad--reasonably enough--questions this logic, at times we understand what the teacher means, because Mohammad seems to experience the undiluted essence of the world in a sensual communion which we could only dream of sharing.
Early in the film, Mohammad hears the cries of a chick which has fallen out of its nest in a tree onto the grass below. Acting by sound and touch alone, he scares off a cat which is closing in for the kill, locates the defenseless little creature, shinnies up the tree, and returns the chick to its nest. This tender moment may mean little in the grand scheme of things, but it resonates with a sense of the interconnectedness of all life. And because this is a deeply religious film, implicit in the scene is the notion that just as Mohammad cradles the chick in his hands and lifts it to its place up in the tree, we too are cradled in the nurturing hands of God, and will be lifted up to Heaven.
Or perhaps not. Mohammad's life is not easy. Blissfully Edenic as it seems at times, Mohammad nevertheless inhabits the secular world, where the Word of God, if it exists, is written in invisible ink. His mother died several years ago. His father does not want the burden of caring for him. At the beginning of the film, the father urges a teacher at his son's school to care for the boy, claiming that he cannot manage on his own. But Mohammad's grandmother and sister care deeply for him, and when he returns to his rural home at the end of the school term they are delighted to see him. We discover that the father is not concerned about his inability to provide adequate care for his child, but rather is worried that having a blind son will cause a setback to his plans to remarry.
The movie is sweet and joyous in its contemplation of the children's lives--innocent without being cloyingly cute--but it does not ignore the troubles that complicate those lives. The children are limned by clouds of glory, but Mohammad's father is a tired, selfish, unhappy man, beset by poverty and sorrow. There is no childhood, no heaven, left in him, and he cannot appreciate what it is that makes Mohammad's life meaningful. He cruelly insists that his son go to study carpentry with a blind carpenter, taking him away from his sister and grandmother. He claims that he is acting in Mohammad's interests, but the grandmother sees right through him. She herself is another delightful character, but her health is failing, and she serves as a reminder that even the children of heaven are mortal in this world.
THE COLOR OF GOD is not so much a story as an act of devotion. Majidi concentrates on natural unembellished images, and allows us to contemplate them until they take on a kind of spiritual depth. He allows us to share Mohammad's perceptions, to some extent, by holding the camera steady and filtering out unnecessary sounds so that our attention is focused on the noises the blind boy hears: woodpeckers in the forest, seagulls crying above the roar of surf on the beach. A sense of the vibrancy of the living world is impressed upon us: close-ups of touching hands, a dying fish being returned to its pool of water, a butterfly caught momentarily in a girl's palm. The movie reminds us of the delights of simple things, and makes them seem almost sanctifying.
The serene, hymnal mood is disrupted in the climactic sequence, which forces a crisis in the relationship between Mohammad and his father. It is an exciting and tense finale, but comes as a shock, and is rather contrived, forcing closure upon a film which does not need it. It does, however, lead to a remarkable final shot which perhaps justifies the shift in tone. On a literal level, what we see is ambiguous, but its significance is as clear and pure as the bells that ring out at the end of BREAKING THE WAVES. There is no question: it is, like the film as a whole, an act of unadulterated faith in a world where a father--or perhaps Father--allows his children to doubt his love.
Subjective Camera (subjective.freeservers.com) Movie Reviews by David Dalgleish (daviddalgleish@yahoo.com)
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