Rating: 
Summary: Simply Beautiful
Review: This is a film not for everyone, only for those who have a profound love of film. The story is a simple one. A blind boy who reaches out to touch the world that he cannot see. His self-pitying father, who has forgotten how to love. This film moves at a calm pace. Allowing us to feel for the boy by viewing his everyday actions. At one of the film's most moving moments the boy voices his frustrations to a blind carpenter(to which he is momentarily entrusted.)But it is the film's ending, which makes it a masterpiece. Both happy and sad, poignant and powerful. A film that is a triumph.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: This is one of the best movies I've seen. Majid Majidi is at his best once again. The cinematography is supurb. I wish I had seen it in the theather. The acting is wonderful. I don't think anyone can watch this movie without shedding a tear.
Rating: 
Summary: Father & Son¿unusually told
Review: The Color of Paradise is an excellent film using very simple pieces to sensitivley unravel an agonizingly difficult situations between a father and a son, and for each individually. The father's issues are uncomfortably human stuff, the kinds of things one could hardly admit to onesself.
This film does not boil down to symbols.
Rock-solid cinematography. Tremendous use of sound (the boy is deaf). Visually and audibly pleasant to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Idyllic, heartrending film that says a lot with few words.
Review: I was really prompted to see The Color of Paradise after being interviewed for a senior thesis by a student who is of Thai & African-American parentage born in Iran. Several months ago I had seen the preview to the Color of Paradise on another video with lush scenery & a tragedic, but triumphant ending the movie, I Dreamed of Africa. I count myself very fortunate to have found it in my town.The Color of Paradise met all the requirements of a movie which is a work of art. It showed the beauty of a country that few Americans are even interested in knowing about or visiting even though the Iranian government is encouraging tourism. This movie is about the ones who really matter, the common people, living like so many world-wide going about daily seeking beauty in life & eventually dying. A culture is presented here in brush strokes of simplicity and profoundity. It shows how people all over the world are so alike especially in non-western cultures. My mom watched this film with me and even though she didn't keep up with the subtitles she loved this movie because it had such a nostalgic feel to it & she loved the sheer beauty of the Iranian landscape. Oddly enough Muhammad & his family's world was very much like the world she grew up in years ago in the southern US in the African-American community. The fields, chickens in the yard, children doing chores, playing, smiling, going to school, the love of nature, faith in a supreme being, the means of courtship, the importance of family and the community were very much the same during my mom's childhood as they are presented in the film. The Color of Paradise was nostalgic for me too. It really brought back memories of my stay in southern Africa. The pace of the culture and the values are very much the same where I lived as in the film. Little things were so similar like when Muhammad's sister was sweeping the ground outside the entrance of the house that she & her dad had finished white washing. I often saw women sweeping the yard outside your homes during the day when I was living in Africa with the same sort of brooms. In my mom's day her mom did the same chore everyday with what they called a brushroom. Seeing so many children on film with smiling faces also brought back thoughts of Africa. It pains me that so few American children these days know how to smile or desire to play outside like Muhammad and his sisters. I really hoped that the film wouldn't have a tragic ending, but so many foreign films and novels do, but that is true to life unlike the happy endings that Hollywood tends to tack on to films. The Color of Paradise is not only a work of art, but a morality tale. It shows how so often people only realize how much others mean to them when it's too late. Muhammad's father was spoiled & unappreciative of his mother until it was too late. He never took the time to see the worth and genius of his son. Ironically, Muhammad was more appreciated at his sister's school where he was only a guest for a day than by his dad. As the old people used to say, "You don't miss your water until your well runs dry." On the beach, with Muhammad's body in his arms, his father certainly did. The American public needs exposure to such films as the Color of Paradise. Right now America is into sex, violence, shallowness and ugliness in nearly every aspect of our culture. Perhaps if more public theaters stopped worrying so much about money and became courageous enough to show such meaningful films more Americans would see that there are cultures that still value the things that we once did when there was still balance, sensibility, & sanity in our society. I think the film was aptly named. It is believed that the Garden of Eden was in modern day Iran or Iraq. The scenery in The Color of Paradise makes me believe this is so. I was mesmerized by this film, and I wept outwardly and inwardly not only at the end but during several of the scenes of the Iranian countryside. The Color of Paradise said so much with few words.
Rating:
Summary: What color is God?
Review: As someone else pointed out, the correct translation should have been 'The Color of God'. I believe Mohammed saw colors to which the rest of us are truly blind. No leading men, no mud-adorned nymphs wallowing in the wild, no swelling sound track, no special effects, no pathetic plot that becomes painfully obvious after the first five minutes... The director of this movie knows how to tell a story. And tell it very well. This movie made me cry several times, which is something I almost never do. It made me love and respect a little boy so full of life that he gave a little of himself to everything he touched. I didn't hate the father, I grew to have compassion for him because he was weak and full of fear. The fear speaking in his eyes as he watched the current take his little son away, the fear saying 'please die for me, it will be so much easier if you die now...'. The grandmother spoke volumes with her eyes. When she stood watching her grandson tyring to hide from her behind a tree, you could so clearly share her love. When Mohammed touched her, feeling her face, then her hands, there was a communication that needed no words. When Mohammed started crying because he wanted to go to school with his sisters, she said 'Please don't cry. I would die for you.' I believed her. I wanted the movie to go on after the ending, but I realized that it stopped exactly where it should have. Maybe some of our directors will see this movie and learn something...
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful beautiful movie!
Review: The movie tells that a blind child Mohammed came to his village with his reluctant father from the school in Tehran. There he lived with his grandmother, his father and his two sisters. His father wanted to remarry and was worried by the fact that he had a blind son. He wanted to send Mohammed to a blind carpenter as a apprentice. But the kind grandmother rejected that. When one day his father took Mohammed away to the carpenter, his grandmother grieved and passed away soon. The fiancee's family rejected the marriage because they saw the death as an ominous sign for the marriage. When the father brought Mohammed back in a rainy day, Mohammed slipped into the flooding brook and flowed away. His father jumped into the brook and pursuit him. Eventually he found Mohammed's body and held it in deep sorrow. The movie is so beautifully shot. The cinematography is superb. A few scenes are breathtakingly stunning: 1. When the grandmother knew that his son had taken his grandson away, she stood desolately in sadness. The snowwhite chicken feathers were whirling lightly aournd her and the movie turned into silence. Without a single word, the love of the grandmother to her grandson was brilliantly presented. 2.When the grandmother passed away, the old lady was like a goddess as the camera closed to her serene face. The screen lightened up and very tender music raised after a while of complete silence. I could hardly believe she had passed away although I knew she actually had. Purely poetical! 3. At the end of the movie, when Mohammed was flooded away, I was extremely sad and felt helpless. His father eventually found his body. He held the body and wept deeply. the camera lingered at the hand of the boy. The fingers moved, the screen was brightened up. At that moment I was totally mesmerized and felt no more sadness. The movie beautifully ended there, as I was left utterly speechless. One of the disgusting things about a lot of these days' movies is pretension and affectation--corny love must be accompanied by grandiose soundtrack and our feelings towards the movies are therefore misled and become untrue. In contrast, a lot of Iranian movies have very little musical score, touching the souls purely by acting and photography. The color of paradise, instead using bunch of music, use elements of true lives, such as the sound of woodpeckers, which makes the movie uncommonly refreshing. Believe me to watch the color of paradise, to experience the genuine soul-touching movie making!
Rating:
Summary: Fear and Faith
Review: First I was entranced by the sights and sounds - it reminded me of the Scent of Green Papaya. And the boy soon stole my heart. When he cries out, asking how God could have made him blind so he could not see Him, he spoke for all of us I think. And even though his father seemed cruel at first, I could not hate him: I also know what it feels like to love someone and at the same time not know how you are going to take care of them, and to not be able to believe that you will be taken care of. His father could not see God either, even though he had eyes.
Rating:
Summary: For the blind who can see...
Review: Once again Majidi has stunned me with the powerful simplicity of his themes and with visual images that Jung tried to warn us about...they must linger so effortlessly because they are part of our collective memory. How beautiful were his hands???
Rating:
Summary: A MUST SEE
Review: I FIRST SAW THIS MOVIE ABOUT 6 MONTHS AGO, AND HAVE SEEN IT ABOUT 8 TIMES SINCE. THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN. IT IS A DIFFERENT TYPE OF CINEMA THAN THE ONE WE ARE USED TO IN THE WEST, PARTICULARY IN THE USA. THERE ARE NO SPECIAL EFFECTS AND THE STORY LINE IS VERY BASIC, IT IS NOT AN ACTION FILM. THE BEAUTY OF THIS MOVIE LIES IN ITS SIMPLICITY, AND IN ITS STRONG MESSAGE. EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT HAS WATCHED THIS MOVIE WITH ME HAS BOUGHT IT AFTERWARDS. I WILL NOT SAY ANYTHING MORE AS THIS MOVIE IS BEST EXPERIENCED.
Rating:
Summary: Cinema at its FINEST!
Review: This film is a source of relief in an era in which popular cinema is full of meaningless fluff and artsy films tend to focus on bizzare elements of sexuality. The film is in Farsi (with english subtitles), but regardless of the language you understand, this film will speak to your heart. It is a timeless tale of spiritual testing and toil - of a search for meaning and redemption. The film deals a lot with the issue of 'opposites', which is imbedded in Islamic tradition, such as in the poems of Rumi. In addition, the film represents the spirit of a faith, Islam, that is not represented by the Western media. Rather than watching "Not Without My Daughter" or reading "The Princess", your time will be much better spent checking this film out.
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