Song of Sparrows

• I can't say that I've seen a whole lot of foreign films in my lifetime. If you asked me how many i've seen, I would probably just say "Song of Sparrows" only because I can't remember any other foreign films as great as this one. What I loved the most about this film is the main character Karim. The transformation he undertakes throughout the whole movie is subtle yet all too powerful towards the end. At first I didn't really get it. The movie to me was just playing out the events of an everyday man in Iran. I think it hit me once he broke his leg. When he is sitting in the house as he watches all of his stuff be sold, I think that's when it hits him, and when it also made sense to me. The city changed this man. The things that happened to him, like people not paying him, or being haggled, or forced to help move stuff into a house... It all changed him. He was this hard working man that loved his job at the ostrich farm (so much that he had to dress up as an ostrich to find the missing one) and once he got fired and he had to go into the city to buy a hearing aid for his daughter, he slowly became more abusive and angry. I love what Professor ford said about the sparrow in the house, because it really did describe the movie perfectly. The sparrow was trapped inside the house, and once it was free it represented Karim's spirit in a sense. He was trapped by these pressures of the city and his family, but after his accident with his leg, he learned to chill out, and just enjoy life for what it is. This was especially true when he was singing to the kids in the back of the truck once they had lost their fish. I came into this movie, expecting something weird and possibly boring, but after watching, I realized this was in fact a really cool and very inspiring movie.