The Colour Of Paradise

The Colour Of Paradise

Next Monday, 6:30pm at Rialto, our Iranian season continues with THE COLOUR OF PARADISE.

Majid Majidi, Iran, 1999. 35mm, 90 min. M

A sightless boy sees more of God’s green earth than his sighted father can in Majid Majidi’s majestic /The Colour of Paradise/ – another profound entry in the remarkable catalogue of contemporary Iranian films that focus on children and landscape to express yearnings for innocence and faith.

In one way or another, the cinema of every nationality addresses the tenuous relationship of man and nature (in the United States it tends to be through bloated disaster epics like /Twister/). But in Iran this grandest of themes is almost a national obsession. And in Majid Majidi's stunningly beautiful film […] that relationship is evoked with an ecstatic sensuousness along with an awed awareness of nature's destructive power that are nothing less than extraordinary.

As much as any film can, this explicitly religious movie offers a visionary experience of the natural world. Moving through fields of flowers and misty forests, across streams and into the craggy backwoods country, /The Colour of Paradise/ makes sure that we hear as well as see the rugged Iranian landscape in all sorts of weather. The soundtrack is a constantly shifting chorus of birds (especially woodpeckers), insects, wind and rain. In the forest scenes, an ominous, possibly supernatural cry is occasionally heard from afar. – Stephen Holden, /New York Times/ / / /The feature will be preceded by the 11-minute NZ short film THE CAKE TIN./

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