Yousef, a 45-year-old university professor, has been blind since an accident when he was seven. A cornea transplant partially restores his sight. It turns out that blindness had given structure to his existence. Suddenly, while we are watching writer-director Majid Majidi’s Beed-e majnoon, the screen goes black.
A devout Muslim, Yousef has felt that his blindness suggests that God has dismissed or abandoned him. When he says, “More than anything, I long for the light,” he is after proof that God is committed to his welfare. When he can see again, he spots a worker ant toting a bit of leaf on the hospital window sill: an image of burdensome existence—symbolically, the human lot. But Yousef’s blindness has kept him from appreciating his kinship with his species. Nor does he do so now; rather, he is in a rage over the thirty-eight sighted years he feels cheated of, and it doesn’t help, either, to discover that his devoted wife, Roya, is plain. His sister-in-law, Pari, is younger and prettier.
There is a great moment during a packed train ride when Yousef, seated, spots a standing young pickpocket at work. As he lifts a fellow passenger’s wallet, the boy watches Yousef watching him and smiles. Yousef isn’t smiling, but by not interceding he makes himself accomplice to the crime. The theft suits Yousef’s newly embittered, cynical view of the world.
Majidi ironically portrays the awakening of Yousef’s sight. Nature appears most gorgeous prior to this awakening; we see the beauty, but Yousef cannot. A pale, insubstantial reflection in hospital glass is Yousef’s first image of himself. Yousef continually touches things in order to determine what he is looking at, his sight remaining bound to his former blindness.
An inconclusive film, but an interesting one.
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THE WILLOW TREE (Majid Majidi, 2005)
By grunesYousef, a 45-year-old university professor, has been blind since an accident when he was seven. A cornea transplant partially restores his sight. It turns out that blindness had given structure to his existence. Suddenly, while we are watching writer-director Majid Majidi’s Beed-e majnoon, the screen goes black.
A devout Muslim, Yousef has felt that his blindness suggests that God has dismissed or abandoned him. When he says, “More than anything, I long for the light,” he is after proof that God is committed to his welfare. When he can see again, he spots a worker ant toting a bit of leaf on the hospital window sill: an image of burdensome existence—symbolically, the human lot. But Yousef’s blindness has kept him from appreciating his kinship with his species. Nor does he do so now; rather, he is in a rage over the thirty-eight sighted years he feels cheated of, and it doesn’t help, either, to discover that his devoted wife, Roya, is plain. His sister-in-law, Pari, is younger and prettier.
There is a great moment during a packed train ride when Yousef, seated, spots a standing young pickpocket at work. As he lifts a fellow passenger’s wallet, the boy watches Yousef watching him and smiles. Yousef isn’t smiling, but by not interceding he makes himself accomplice to the crime. The theft suits Yousef’s newly embittered, cynical view of the world.
Majidi ironically portrays the awakening of Yousef’s sight. Nature appears most gorgeous prior to this awakening; we see the beauty, but Yousef cannot. A pale, insubstantial reflection in hospital glass is Yousef’s first image of himself. Yousef continually touches things in order to determine what he is looking at, his sight remaining bound to his former blindness.
An inconclusive film, but an interesting one.
Tags: Iranian cinema
This entry was posted on June 7, 2008 at 12:02 am and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.