Majid Majidi's favorite man,Reza Naji who played the construction overseer Memar in Baran (2001),the father of the blind boy Ali in Bacheha-Ye aseman (1997),and Mortaza the hospital mate of Youssef (Parviz Parastui)in Beed-e majnoon (2005)plays Karim this time. Karim works in an ostrich farm.He doesn't make much but he seems to be contented with what he has with his simple family. One day he gets the ax when one of the ostriches runs away.On his way back home, he finds out that her daughter has dropped her hearing aid in the sludge of the local storage. Soon after, he travels to Tehran to have the hearing aid fixed.When he is mistaken for a cabbie with his motorbike he starts making his living in Tehran.Through heavy traffic he carries goods like- even-a refrigerator and many sorts of people.Through the bustling city life we witness Karim's sustained efforts trying to preserve his unadulterated self. Karim,even as an understanding husband and father is still part of a patriarchal society. He believes in his own truth. For instance, one day when he is coming back from the city,he sees his kids selling flowers on the roadside and the first reaction he gives is:" Don't I provide for you enough?" However the only dream his son Hussein (Hamed Aghazi), has is to clean up the storage,buy some fish to let them reproduce there and to become a millionaire by selling more and more fish:)No matter how brusque he looks like Karim is a good-hearted guy like any other major Majidi character. Deeply and genuinely concerned with faith,bad men don't seem to be taking much of a space in Majidi's movies. Unlike other Iranian directors like Abbas Kiarostami he seems to have undertaken a mission of creating simple but sweet movies. Last but not least,IMDb's language information may sometimes be not fully correct. Majidi uses more and more the Turkish language in his movies. Song of Sparrows include more Turkish words than his previous movies maybe because of the fact that Karim and the local people around him speak a Persian mixed with Azerbaijani Turkish. The song Karim sings at the back of the truck and the song he sings to his wife are in Turkish. The songs to which they listen on the truck's tape recorder are also in Turkish. It may be just me but I guess Song of Sparrows is also a more hopeful and less dark movie than the previous Majidi flicks. As someone who have seen his movies like Baran and The Colour of Paradise, this one is easier to watch without tears. All in all, it is a purely humanitarian,an overwhelmingly sweet movie that you will just like!
Review of The Song of Sparrows
