THE SONG OF SPARROWS (Iranian) (2008)

Once again over to Iranian cinema of Majid Majidi and the man brought to screen a deep humanitarian tale where life is all about moments of small pleasures and unfixed sum of burden. The man doesn’t need complex plot, innovative concepts, stylistic devices to fill screen with covert art. His simple and deeply humanistic tales of human struggle has aesthetics of life. Needless to say the man grows on watching moving films of Masters like De Sica, Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray and it reflects in most of his cinema.

‘The song of sparrows’ is a tale of Karim and his family of three kids, the elder daughter is deaf and her hearing aid becomes dysfunctional. She needs a new pair as her exam is near and the new pair costs too dear. Karim works in ostrich farming in the village, Ramazan is near and his boss is about to witness the farm. Add insult to his injury, an ostrich escaped from the farm. His desperate search for lost ostrich turned futile and it costs him his job. The man turns to city of Tehran on his motorcycle where he earned money giving lifts to passengers in hurry. It’s quite queer to see that motorcycle works as auto rickshaw in Tehran! He earns money to survive and picks and brought to home the trash from the city to fix his TV antenna or window.

Big applause for Reza Naji, the man of honest and damn natural expressions, who works in almost many Majidi films. Like many of Majidi films he’s playing a man struggling to run his family, he is honest, sincere and god fearing person. He is the man of village lost in the hectic struggle of city; his heart lies with ostrich but its machine (motorcycle) which gives him what’s needed for survival. Majidi makes certain scenes so damn natural- i.e Karim’s checking whether his daughter is able to listen from distance, escape of ostrich, Karim’s desperate search for it on top of mountain being ostrich, Karim’s struggle in city. Majidi has brilliantly use aerial shot or wide shots to heighten the emotions and it all works like poetry on screen- Karim being an ostrich on top of mountain, His running with blue door in field and that scene where kids dream shattered on floor surrounded by fish around. The only thing seems quite cliché is the ending with an ostrich dancing; for me his ending of ‘Baran’ and ‘Chidren of Heaven’ are one of the most moving one.

Ratings-8/10