Iranian classic comes to town

Islamabad : Director-co-screenwriter: Majid Majidi Lok Virsa Mandwa Film Club screened Iranian director Majid Majidi’s 1996 award-winning film ‘The Father’ (Pidar) on Saturday (October 6).

Majid Majidi has excelled in films like ‘Colour of Paradise’ (Rang-e-Khuda), ‘Children of Heaven’ (Bacha hai Aasman) and ‘Baraan’.

He has won numerous awards both at home and abroad. His film ‘The Father’ revolves around the relationship between a 14 years old boy and his stepfather. The boy in town has been a source of earning for the family in the village. The film begins when we see him buying clothes and gifts. Majid Majidid takes us close to the boy as we see him shopping and packing. His baggage also includes a precious photograph of his father. On his way home, he freshens himself and down goes the photograph in the gushing water. The director clearly hints that the father is no more around. The boy on reaching home, finds to his anger that the mother, after the demise of husband, has remarried a police officer. Majid Majidi as screenwriter and director picks up the main conflict of the plot from here. The boy would not accept the new order.

As we move around the village and its rugged poverty-stricken locations, the conflict intensifies and becomes the focus. There are also supporting characters at play. However, it is the helpless mother who is seen at her best. She is obviously divided between the husband and son. She yells and screams, runs wildly and even gives a physical thrashing to son when he is not ready to accept his existence of the new male figure and gets out of control. The cameraman captures these images of the dusty village with no electricity and this adds to the dimension of the characters with dirt cheap poverty and bare minimum existence.

The director has clearly spelled out the rift and bitterness among the three characters. He brings out the hardship of life in the village. What follows is child kidnapping (in a sweet way by the boy of his little sisters whom he loves and cares). The boy has to come to grips with the harsh realities. If the boy hates the father, the son hates him to a higher extent. This is coming of age account of the boy as he begins to understand the circumstances around him. With the passage of time and dramatic events, the adversaries gradually move closer and begin to understand each other. It is reconciliation which takes turns in the desert, on the road, with handcuffs and terrible thirst in the burning heat. The anger and bitterness gives way to kind of mutual compromise. As the end credits are about to roll, we see two of them in water where the boy makes a positive gesture.

— aijazzgul@gmail.com