Majid Majidi waves to us, smiling and gesticulating apologetically about having taken a quick cigarette break before the interview. You can’t help but smile back. The celebrated Iranian director of classics like Children of Heaven (1997), The Colour of Paradise (1999) , Baran (2001)and The Song of Sparrows is in Mumbai on the eve of the release of Beyond The Clouds, his first feature film made outside Iran. Dressed in a white T-shirt, khaki trousers and sneakers, Majidi has arrived ahead of time for his day-long session with journalists. In the far end of the nondescript banquet room in a Juhu hotel, he sits with an interpreter and patiently answers questions about the new film, the humanism underlying his work, the Islamophobia engulfing the West, about Mumbai and A.R. Rahman. Excerpts:
Beyond the Clouds is set outside your own cultural context. Why did you choose to make it in India?
It’s always difficult for a filmmaker to go out of his own country unless he can make a connection culturally. I think that between India and Iran there are lots of common points. We have an area in Iran called Baloch. It’s very close to Indian culture — the clothes they wear, the language they speak. I shot my first film ( Baduk , 1992) here. When you go there, custom-wise, ritual-wise, you feel that you are in India. All these points made me think that if I were to make a film out of Iran, India would be the best choice.
How much time did you need to spend in India?
I have been travelling to India for a long time. Specifically for this film I researched in Mumbai for three months. Each day, for eight to 10 hours, I was out there in Mumbai, searching and researching. There isn’t a single location I haven’t seen in the city. I have seen parts of Mumbai that even Mumbai people haven’t. One of my locations was Dhobi Ghat. When I took my director of photography, Anil Mehta, there, he said, “I have been living here but hadn’t seen it so far.”
What is it about Mumbai that struck you the most?
I think Mumbai is full of diversity. It is exciting. There is old Mumbai and new Mumbai. And then you have the sea. Somehow you have everything, all together.
Did you always have A.R. Rahman in mind to compose the music for the film?
From the very beginning I was thinking of Rahman because of my first experience of working with him on Muhammad: The Messenger of God. Working together was a very nice experience. Apart from his aesthetics, work and talent I admire his character. I admire him as a person. We are very close friends.
Beyond The Cloud has been spoken of as Children of Heaven set in Mumbai. How has this relocation been?
There is the same story about a brother and sister but they have both grown up. There were challenges that the two faced in Children of Heaven. The challenges get bigger, their ways of dealing with them are different because now they are adults, teenagers. But they resolve the challenges with the same values, which are essentially humanitarian values. So it’s similar conceptually.
The figure of the child in Iranian cinema has been analysed in terms of how it brought the politics of the filmmaker into the film in an oblique way. When the child grows up, does the politics become more direct?
For me, politics has never been the motivation to make a film because when you tilt towards politics your film ends up looking like a journalist’s article or a newspaper. It’s more the social issues. You go to deeper levels of humanity, deeper aspects about human beings.
So is the benchmark of your cinema. People, their stories and conditions?
Humanism has always been my main concern. Each work of art comes from the heart of the artist. You are representing yourself. It [my cinema] is about my personal life experience, the difficulties I had to face. Since I was 14 or 15, I had to handle responsibilities, look after my family. My father died when I was very young. It’s the difficult part of my life that shaped my character, who I am. These things have remained with me and will remain with me forever. It’s for this reason that in all my films family has a lot of value. I think the family is very important and keeping the family together well is the most important thing specially in this period of modernity. We are somehow going far away from the family. Because of our virtual lives we are not communicating.
You have chosen to go back to Children of Heaven . Do I assume it’s because the film is your personal favourite?
Before Children of Heaven ,I had two other films [ Baduk; The Father, 1996 ], which were very well accepted. They were screened at Cannes and other international festivals. But Children of Heaven was a big jump for me; it established me internationally. It made me more known. It is not just a film, now it has become a culture. They are teaching it in schools and universities. It’s still alive. Taiwan, China, Iran, Japan — it’s in the books there. Acting schools in the U.S. are using the film.
Do you know about the Indian version of the film (Priyadarshan’s Bumm Bumm Bole )?
Unfortunately, it was not a good film. Indonesia and Singapore have made other remakes of it.
What motivated you to make a film on the Prophet? Did you feel the need to explain Islam to the world?
That was the exact reason. The interpretation of Islam in this decade, especially in the last year with the presence of ISIS, has been completely wrong. The Islamophobia in Western cultures is based on this interpretation, which is a total lie. These little groups like ISIS have nothing to do with the tenets of Islam. Islam is a religion of kindness, peace and respect towards other religions. I tried to explain just a small part of Islam in Muhammad: The Messenger of God . I opened a small window for the Western world to explain that this is what Islam is about. For example, the rights of women spoken about in Western cultures, it is something new [for them] but it existed in Islam years ago.
Unfortunately, they have banned this film, they have done everything to stop this film in Saudi Arabia, with the help of the U.S., because they don’t want to give this interpretation to the world. Everywhere we went to screen this film, they tried to stop us in different ways.
The powerful, religious people have been giving fatwas, calling it haraam [forbidden]. I ask them why do you call it haraam when you haven’t watched it? At least come and watch the film and then decide. They have no logic. But I believe this film will open its own way in the future.
