IRAN
WHITE BALLOON
Iranian films are not big in the United States. After just a few months of limited release, The White Balloon has already made more money in this country than any previous Iranian picture, including last year’s Through the Olive Trees, which was made by international film icon Abbas Kiarostami and distributed by Miramax. The White Balloon, written by Kiarostami and directed by one of his proteges, Jafar Panahi, has the characteristic slow, stately tone that dominates Iranian efforts, but, at least in terms of its minimalist narrative, it’s reminiscent of Vittorio De Sica’s Italian classic, The Bicycle Thief. Continue reading
DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
A film comprised of three interconnected vignettes that depict women at three stages of life in Iran. The first part centers on a young girl on her ninth birthday who is told that she can no longer play with the boys she had been playing with only the day before because she is now a woman. Told from the perspective of a 9-year-old girl who does not feel like or know what the word “woman” refers to, we see how devastatingly this affects both the girl and the boy with whom she had been friends. The second part is about a young woman who decides to enter a bicycle race against her husband’s wishes. As first, the husband and then increasing numbers of men from her village ride beside her on horseback to convince her to return home. The race begins to symbolize a freedom that she desperately wants from the limitations that have been placed on her. Finally, the third part shows us an old woman who has come into some money and is now free to do what she wants. The way she chooses to use this freedom, however, makes one wonder just how free she is.
– Written by Jonathan Beebe <jrbeebe@midway.uchicago.edu>
COLOR OF PARADISE
Director: Majid Majidi
Mohammad, a boy at Tehran’s institute for the blind, waits for his dad to pick him up for summer vacation. While waiting, he realizes a baby bird has fallen from its nest: he chases away a cat, finds the bird, climbs a tree, and puts it back. His father finally comes and takes him to their village where his sisters and granny await. The lad is a loving student of nature and longs for village life with his family, but his father is ashamed of him, wanting to farm the boy out to clear the way for marriage to a woman who knows nothing of this son. Over granny’s objections, dad apprentices Mohammad far from home to a blind carpenter. Can anything bring father and son together?
– Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
CHILDREN OF HEAVEN
After a boy loses his sister’s pair of shoes, he goes on a series of adventures in order to find them. When he can’t, he tries a new way to “win” a new pair.
Director: Majid Majidi
Writer: Majid Majidi