Iran has become one of the lights of world cinema, the repression of its authoritarian regime notwithstanding. Perhaps, like Russia under the czars or Hollywood under the Production Code, a certain degree of censorship can actually spur creativity when the rules are like genre conventions, setting boundaries for the brilliant to subvert.
One of Iran’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Majid Majidi, directed The Color of Paradise and the Oscar-nominated Children of Heaven. His 2009 film, The Song of Sparrows (out on DVD) is characteristic of the country’s post-revolution cinema in its gently moving depiction of everyday people beset by commonplace cares. Flashes of astounding cinematic beauty illuminate the easygoing narrative.
After Karim (Mohammad Amir Naji) loses his farm through no fault of his own, he ventures into Iran’s bustling capital, Teheran, to replace his deaf daughter’s hearing aid. Pondering where to find the money while sitting astride his motorbike, a business executive with a cell phone glued to his chin jumps on back and orders him to a nearby hotel. The confused Karim drives on through the Chicago-style traffic, gradually realizing he has been mistaken for a motorcycle cabbie. Before long, he comes to Teheran daily, turning his beat-up bike into a taxi.
The Song of Sparrows shows that despite the Islamic republic’s revolutionary rhetoric and a 30-year U.S. embargo, Teheran is a bustling trade center and marketplace linked to the world. Commerce is king, undercutting the values of family and community the film extols through the example of Karim, a hot-headed, put-upon but kindly man. Implicitly, The Song of Sparrows critiques the drift of contemporary Iranian society toward greed masked with hypocrisy. The mysterious mechanism of fate is at work throughout. More profoundly, Majidi’s film is the sort of unsentimentalized tribute to family and devotion Hollywood can never get right anymore.
