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Once again, Iran

The films were a masterly bouquet

EVOCATIVE EXPRESSIONS A still from `Colour of Paradise'

Eighty-nine cinema theatres in Teheran, (alone), 289 in the rest of Iran; 32 women filmmakers and around 57 women actors; 20 children's film festivals held across Iran; institutional systems in place to support cinema. No wonder then, that the Iranians have mastered the craft. At making the best cinema out of the commonplace. Once again, the Hyderabad Film Club paid tribute to good cinema in the recently concluded Iranian Film Festival. The festival was organised in collaboration with the Consulate General of Islamic Republic of Iran at the Indira Priyadarshini Auditorium.

Three of Majid Majidi's films were screened at the festival - the inaugural film Children of Heaven, Colour of Paradise and Baran. The first film is about a peculiar `catch' that the young Ali Nandegar gets himself into by offering to share with his sister his sneakers with his sister. because he misses her slippers at a shop.This leads to the children racing against time to reach their respective schools, wearing the same pair of sneakers. Ali comes first in a minor marathon, but that does not make his sister Zohreh happy because had he come thirdhe would have won a new pair of sneakers for her.Excellent photography (Parviz Malekzadeh) - the race, the children running between school and the narrow alleys; the pond by which the children play - enhances the action.

The final scene is most evocative, as Ali, with sore feet, and torn sneakers, sits forlorn, dejected looking at his sister's unenthused face, with his feet in the pond. Majid makes a not so subtle comment also on the stark contrast in lives of the rich and the poor.Colour of Paradise is one of the most exquisitely poetic of his films. What one can and cannot see, may not be such a stark contrast, after all, is what the young Mohammad's life seems to tell us. He can `see' it all - nature's `patterns', sounds, and love and bonding, through his sense of touch. He is the quintessential child in all of us, who feel, sense, touch - then it does not matter what he can see/ sense (grandmother's love) and not see (his father's hatred). The film and its rich colours - flowers, the mountainside, the pretty faces of Mohammad's sisters, make the film truly breathtaking.

Mohammad's blindness is a problem only for his father, while for all else, including Mohammad himself, it does not exist. The relationship between him and his grandmother is deeply touching. It takes a freak accident, and seeing his child carried away by a gushing river stream to make Mohammad's father realize his loss. We watch, as the father holds on to his son, in his arms. As Mohammad's hands move, slowly, to the sound of the White Ibis flying across, the audience too rejoices. Majid Majidi's craft is incomparable - poetry in motion.

The Two Women (Tahmineh Milani) shows two faces of Iran's women through two women's stories. Fareshteh and Roya represent these contexts - patriarchal, conservative as against liberal and assertive.

A stalker, and a suspicious husband ruin the life of Fareshteh, brilliant architecture student, a fierce fighter, and accomplished woman. Years later, she narrates her story to her friend, Roya at a hospital where her husband has just died.

Of course there are bad films too in Iran, an examples being Love without Frontier, a dull, insipid and naïve fare by Pooran Derakshendeh full of editing, lighting and other glitches.

While most of the films have been screened in earlier festivals in Hyderabad, the HFC and the Consulate must make efforts to bring in newer films of the present generation filmmakers from Iran to show a true kaleidoscope of Iranian cinema.

R. UMA MAHESHWARI

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