Song of Sparrows

This film really brings you into the Iranian culture, especially that of Iranian suburbs. I felt as if I was transported to another world, yet one that carried so much familiarity for me that I could relate extremely well with the characters in the story. I think one major difference between our two cultures is that the one portrayed in the film got down to the basic needs, duties, and desires of humans, while American culture provides a lot more distractions that confuse those basic things - we somehow convince ourselves that we need this and that, yet end up empty when we've finally obtained them. And I think this is addressed in Song of Sparrows as well, when we see Karim continue to build up his mound of material things that just sit there... So I guess at face value their culture seems more basic and less "corrupted" by things that are of no value, (probably due to the general poverty that exists there) but when you look closely they experience the same temptations as we do. It would seem that wherever there is a desire for more "stuff", that desire is not fulfilled no matter how much we gather for ourselves.

Another huge theme in this film is the importance of family and inter-personal relationships. Karim doesn't seem to get it until he has no choice but to sit there and learn from his children. They teach him what really matters; their heart for the fish in the pond, the love between them and their mother, the right motivation behind working hard. Only when he is willing to learn from a child can he go on with life as one who sees it's beauty.

I think this is really cool, because it fits so well with what we've been learning about becoming a child in order to do good art...and how Jesus lifted children to such a level that if you cannot become like them, you won't be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Majidi knew this well, and I think that even though he doesn't see Jesus as the Son of God, he really gets this part of the Gospel better than a lot of Christians.... so we really have a lot to learn from Muslims. And I think we can learn something of God's truth from even those "Samaritans" of this age that we're just too judgmental of to listen to with an open mind. All this said, Song of Sparrows is a beautiful film that communicates much truth through the rare lens of Islamic film.