#songofsparrows

[hank-timur]

#thesparrows #singingsparrows #singinghymns #singinghymnstogether #songofsparrows #sparrowtree #hauntedbirds #hauntedtree #zombietrees #woodcutterchallenge #woodcutter #timurhank (at Sanjay Gandhi National Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/CD8ncLVjjAL/?igshid=1e9t00vjfrd2h

[muteemmilce-blog]

Serçelerin Şarkısı filminden... İşte o meşhur sahne... Lütfen devamı için sola kaydırınız. #majidmajidi #mecidmecidi #serçelerinşarkısı #songofsparrows #آواز_گنجشکها #مجيد_مجيدي (Konya, Turkey) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoKA97cnKq9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=tw1ceankecg2

[tamasha007]

What an absolute pleasure to spend an afternoon with a maestro editor, Mr Hassan Hassandoost - an editor who has worked closely with #majidmajidi on most of his award winning films from #childrenofheaven to #songofsparrows to #colorofparadise . So excited to have him onboard our next project @danishrenzu (at The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai)

[persianatpenn]

The Song of Sparrows

For this culture blog, I watched The Song of Sparrows, a 2008 Oscar-nominated Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi. Without trying to spoil anything, the film is about a man named Karim, who worked on an ostrich farm, but gets fired when one ostrich runs away under his watch. As a result, he is forced to go look for work in Tehran, and finds alternate ways to make money. However, this presents personal complications for Karim: prior to losing his job at the ostrich farm, Karim was a simple and generous man whose main concern was making the life of his family better, but as he continues to work in the city, he becomes more obsessed with money and goods.  As a general note, I thought the movie was fantastic and moving.  One of the most interesting aspects of the movie was the motif of the ostrich. Throughout the film, Karim is reminded of the ostrich that ran away from him and that he searched for. The only time he gets these reminders, however, is when he is contemplating doing something that is antithetical to his good nature. This motif clearly reflects that the ostrich that ran away symbolizes himself - he loses himself for a while, just like the ostrich is lost, and is reminded of the ostrich (and thus, himself), when he is about to do something that he would never have done prior to the loss of the ostrich. The motif of the ostrich serves to enhance the theme of losing and finding oneself. This theme is also reflected when Karim's friend from the ostrich farm goes away at the start of the film on a pilgrimage to Afghanistan, and returns at the end of the film bearing gifts from the ostrich. 

Another part of the film that I truly enjoyed was the diverse personalities encountered in Karim's family. Karim is someone who is willing to give his family the shirt off of his back, his son Hussein is a trouble-maker with good intentions, his loyal daughter Haniyeh, who has a hearing problem but does her best to protect her little brother when he gets in trouble and is always taking care of her father, and his wife Narges, who is oftentimes the voice of reason in the house. 

The last theme I would like to explore is the theme of religion. There are many times that Karim demonstrates his faithfulness in the beginning of the film, and his lack of faith in the middle. The film is trying to demonstrate that getting attached to worldly things, becoming greedy, and forgetting your family and community are all contrary to Islamic values. "The World is a lie, the world is a dream," sings Karim as he sits with children on a truck driving through Tehran: do not get attached to possessions, because they are not real - they are worldly and are impermanent. Since I do not know much about Islam, I thought the values were fascinating thing to learn through the lens of the movie.  I think the significance of the film is this: it is criticizing the consumptive lifestyle in Iran caused by modernization. I think the film is trying to come to terms with the transition to becoming modern, and this is demonstrated through the scenes of beautiful sprawling fields in villages outside of Iran juxtaposed with scenes of dirt, grime and pollution in Tehran. Thus, the main point of the film is that modernity is challenging morality of Iranians and must be viewed with extreme caution.  I do not believe that the activity challenged many preconceptions or stereotypes, rather, they might have actually reinforced more stereotypes than they challenged. My only critique of the film was that the personalities of the females in the film were downplayed. There is one daughter in the film whose name is never mentioned, even though she is in many different scenes, and the father never has an interaction with her. The elder daughter, Haniyeh, has more interactions with him but never defies him, unlike her little brother. The mother, while probably having the most to say, does not demonstrate any independence, but rather, is completely dependent on her husband and son for the survival of the household. At the end of the film, I did not get the sense of a three-dimensional person from any of the characters except for Karim and Hussein, the males. This may have reinforced the idea that women seem to play a secondary, complacent and more servile role in Iranian society. The only challenge to stereotype I could think of is that while many outsiders might believe that Iranian men (or, Middle Eastern men in general) are overly dominant and do not treat their families in the, for lack of a better phrase, proper "Western" way, the film demonstrates that male Iranian figures, just like other males from different societies, love their families, and that male Iranian figures would sacrifice as much as they could for them.  Finally, an aspect not similar to Western cultures (and thus similar to non-Western cultures) is the role of community. This film coincided nicely with material I have been learning about in another class about theories of Third World politics. The movie reflected many political theories from the Third World: a key one is that community is supreme above all else.  While in the West, specifically in America, there is a legacy of rugged individualism and manifest destiny, the film demonstrates the vital role communities play in individual survival in non-Western countries. For example, Karim found a blue door in Tehran and brought it home on his motorcycle. When his wife gave it away to a neighbor who needed it, he went to the neighbor and took it back, claiming it was an accident and it was for someone else, when he actually intended to keep it. The wife was stunned and cried that he broke this community norm of helping out one's neighbor. Later, when Karim gets very sick, the entire community comes to his aid in helping him heal and his family is supported financially with help and donations from friends and extended family.  All in all, I thought the movie was fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to watch a spiritually-moving film. Here's the link to the trailer if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgYEsKdCTI

Citation: Jenkins, Mark. "Majidi's 'Song Of Sparrows': Ambition On The Wing." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2013. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102600367>.

- Leila