“Life finds a way”, they say. Expressions are signs of life and art is a form of expression.
In societies where there are severe restrictions on expressions, art finds its own way. Since the Islamic revolution, Iranian regime imposed strict censorship on films. Despite the repression, the cinema movement continues to thrive. Censorship and control create barriers that filmmakers sail across using creativity. In Iran, they went about their narrative by building plots around subjects less likely to incur censorships. Iranian films use, as narrative tools, children and common men struggling to make ends meet. The film makers show societal weaknesses by camouflaging their socio-political assertions and comments behind simple narratives. Their films use metaphors such as children to aim at larger underlying issues.
Majid Majidi does so in the ‘Song of the Sparrows’.
The film begins with an ostrich and ends with one.
“Song of The Sparrows” is a befitting title for the film. Sparrows are the most common of birds. Majidi tells the tale of the common man. Song of Sparrows, is the story of the common man titled by the common bird.
Karim works at an ostrich farm. He works hard and barely manages to make ends meet.
He loses his job when one of the birds in his care escapes. While in Tehran with the intention of replacing his daughter’s broken hearing aid, he is mistaken for a motorbike cabbie by a frantic businessman. He starts a new and better paying occupation ferrying people around and soon he is caught up in the harsh rhythm of the city.
He also becomes a scavenger. With a keen eye for Tehran's junk and castoffs he picks up articles which he thinks might add a probable value to his life. Maybe as a man of limited means, collecting junk becomes a way of securing himself economically – no matter how frugal be the value addition.
Soon TV antennas, window frames, used doors strapped to the back of the motorbike are transported home. As Karim drives around Tehran, so does his reclaimed junk pile grows. In an odd way, the unsettled aspect of his life grows proportionately. The earlier contented and generous man very slowly develops shades of a discontented miser hoarding his treasures.
Karim briefly has a job moving appliances. He once loses track of the fleet while delivering a refrigerator and is tempted to take it.
In course, he comes across an ostrich which was being transported. Realization dawns on him as he recalls what it feels like to lose something and decides against the thought of stealing.
While the film itself is a slice of life without any pre-climax built-up, throughout the film, there are numerous little incidents of life playing the balancing act.
Sometime later Karim meets with an accident under his pile of junk and is bed ridden. He has all the time at hand in contrast to his working days when he was on continuously on the run. He now reflects on his life and those of whom around him and can see the effort of the children in trying to create a fish farm. Karim’s son Hussain and his friends had emptied sludge from an old tank to breed fish and dreamt of becoming millionaires.
Several moments in the film, the characters narrate more through their responses to incidents and environment than through dialogue.
Many characters have been used as symbolisms of life, hope. The title of the film, as the director explains, is a paradox. Sparrows do not sing. It has been used symbolically to convey the hopes people may have for what it is not possible for them to achieve. It is easiest to find joy in ‘Sparrows’ moment by moment, than the whole. Little joys are the best.
Karim’s fellow worker, Ramezan informs him of the ostrich’s return. In the end, everyone comes out of their share of turmoil with something.
It all comes back to where it began. Just like a circle. Only that one is wiser with each round.
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