Director Spotlight

Of Heavens and Paradise- Majid Majidi

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Majid Majidi, along with Abbas Kiarostami and the Makhmalbafs, is one of the auteurs responsible for placing Iranian movies firmly on the radar of world cinema during the 1990s. He is probably the most mainstream of the Iranian New Wave, making heart-warming, crowd-pleasing cinema, while incorporating meaningful social commentary. The fact that his movies can be loved and appreciated by all, and not just hardcore art-house followers, doesn’t diminish the stature or importance of his work in relation to the abstract but powerful exploration of the cinematic form by greats like Kiarostami.

Majidi’s debut movie was, ‘Baduk’ made in 1992. But he broke out on the international scene with ‘Children of heaven’ in 1997, which also got nominated for the best foreign film Oscar, eventually losing out to Roberto Benigni’s ‘Life is beautiful’.

His storylines are disarmingly simple and touching. The protagonists are frequently kids or adolescent teenagers. And he recreates the world as seen through their clear, bright eyes, unsullied by the cynicism of adults.

Iranian cinema was being slowly strangled by the theocratic dictates and censorship after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in the late 1970s. But after his death in 1989, the directors obtained some breathing space and they developed a style of poetic neo-realism to operate within the bounds of the still tough constraints.

Now poetry and realism are too elements which don’t seem to blend too well at first sight. But they do blend seamlessly in Iranian cinema as exemplified by Majid Majidi’s works. On one side, you have the grim reality of poverty, living in constant fear. At the other end, you have the intense family attachments and caring in ‘Children of heaven’, the tender blossoming love between the construction worker Lateef and the refugee Baran in ‘Baran’, the blind boy Mohammad reaching out to nature and god in ‘The color of paradise’…

Mostly non-actors are used and the shooting is done in real locations and not sets. Majidi found the female lead in ‘Baran’ in an actual Afghan refugee camp in Iran, while the male lead, Lateef, was a boy who worked as a fruit-seller and had worked with him earlier in a small bit role.

The harshness and oppression in Majidi’s movies is understated. The characters are all basically decent people, trying to make the best of whatever has been dished out to them by fate…meeting up to the challenges of their day-to-day existence… finding joy and stealing moments of happiness amidst all the gloom and sadness.

Some of Majidi’s movies have been talked about below in detail. Read on…