The Color of Paradise
A blind boy who notices everything, and a father who notices nothing.
A blind boy returns home for the summer to a father who sees him as a burden standing in the way of a new marriage.
A boy who had never acted before
The boy at the center of The Color of Paradise was born blind and had never acted before. He plays Mohammad, an eight-year-old who leaves his school for the blind in Tehran and heads home to the mountains for the summer. His widowed father wants to remarry, and a blind son doesn't fit the plan. The film slows down to the boy's pace. He reads the world through birdsong and the feel of things under his fingers, and before long you're hearing the forest the way he does.
Ninety minutes that hurt
His performance is about as honest as child acting gets. The film was a big hit in Iran, which almost never happens to an art film there. It's one of the gentlest films on this list and one of the hardest to shake. Its quietest moments leave the deepest marks.
Stills
Trailer
Cast and crew
Director: Majid Majidi
Cast: Hossein Mahjoub, Mohsen Ramezani, Salameh Feyzi
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