Oscar nominated Iranian director, Majid Majidi has come back with his new movie called The Song of Sparrows. The movie has nominated for 10 Simorgh from Iran's Fajr Film Festival and has earned lots of attentions in Berlin Film Festival yesterday after its first screening.
Karim (Reza Naji) enjoys his work as chief ostrich wrangler at a ranch in a rural area west of Tehran. Naturalistically shot scenes of his charges — inherently cinematic creatures — moving through imposing open landscapes surrounded by mountains provide memorable contrast with ugly, crowded cityscapes later on.
Karim lives with wife Narges (Maryam Akbari), two daughters and a young son in a small village. Like their neighbors, they share when they have plenty and lend a helping hand where needed.
When an ostrich escapes, Karim tries desperately to find it. Spectacular shots of him on a mountaintop, covered with an ostrich hide and manipulating a wooden bird head and neck in a kind of mating dance, are echoed at pic’s end with the real thing.
Fired from his job, he travels to the city in hopes of replacing his eldest daughter’s broken hearing aid. There he’s mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver and begins to transport businessmen (all shouting into cellphones) and consumer products through the heavy traffic.
The passengers and places he encounters start to transform his generous, honest nature, much to the distress of his wife. After Karim suffers an accident that leaves him unable to work, his sense of faith and purpose is ultimately restored.
Rounding out the running time of Karim’s simple story, a quixotic subplot of local boys trying to clear a sludge-filled water storage area in order to breed fish creates some strong visuals and too-obvious sentiment.
The Iranian actor Reza Naji who surprisingly in this photo looks like Hollywood superstar Daniel Day-Lewis has done a superb job in this masterpiece.
There have been a lot of opinions about The Song of Sparrows, its most likely Oscar nominations and also success in European festivals.
Actually I do not like Majid Majidi and his cinema that much but at the end of the day I know how much is difficult to make movies like this in Iran and I respect him for that.
Let's see what happens to him and his new movies.
God Bless You All.
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