The Song of Sparrows
The Song of Sparrows
| 06 February 2009 (USA)
The Song of Sparrows Trailers

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter's hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
superlo This is the story of Karim, the rural Iranian father of a deaf teen-aged daughter and two younger children. When, at the same time, he loses his job on an Ostrich ranch and his daughter loses her hearing aid right before important school exams, he heads to Tehran on his motorbike to look for work. By accident, he becomes a motorbike taxi driver and begins to make more money than he ever dreamed of. But he also begins to change as his desire for things and his ethics collide. Having promised his wife that the first priority would be to replace their daughter's hearing aid, he finds himself tempted by the material life he now has access to. Several heart breaking incidents cause him to examine what he has become. While the story/parable may be familiar, what is special is the way Majidi presents it. The dialogue is minimal letting the non-verbal actions of the characters speak for themselves as well as the great cinematography. Unlike many (not all)American films, it does not insult your intelligence with shallow dialogue and unnecessary action. Majidi really develops the characters into believable human beings. Reza Naji is great as Karim and the children in the film are so delightful and photogenic. And if you enjoy learning about and experiencing other cultures, it is a great window into Iranian culture, in this case, both rural and urban. With most of us only getting the sound bites about Iran we hear on radio or TV, this will give an insight into the real people and culture.
jeppesen-1 I don't know if this movie is considered a comedy, but soooo many funny things happen it's hilarious from start to finish. The main thing that comes to mind is murphy's law (if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all; or, if anything can go wrong, it will.) I also really enjoyed seeing the Iranian landscape and their way of life. Everything that can be used or fixed is utilized. This movie is serious, funny, heartwarming, and good clean family type of entertainment. I thought the acting was great, and the characters endearing. This has got to be one of the best foreign films I've seen. Best thing since Slumdog Millionaire. Too bad it wasn't in English, but than maybe that added to the overall sense of the movie.
elsinefilo Majid Majidi's favorite man,Reza Naji who played the construction overseer Memar in Baran (2001),the father of the blind boy Ali in Bacheha-Ye aseman (1997),and Mortaza the hospital mate of Youssef (Parviz Parastui)in Beed-e majnoon (2005)plays Karim this time. Karim works in an ostrich farm.He doesn't make much but he seems to be contented with what he has with his simple family. One day he gets the ax when one of the ostriches runs away.On his way back home, he finds out that her daughter has dropped her hearing aid in the sludge of the local storage. Soon after, he travels to Tehran to have the hearing aid fixed.When he is mistaken for a cabbie with his motorbike he starts making his living in Tehran.Through heavy traffic he carries goods like- even-a refrigerator and many sorts of people.Through the bustling city life we witness Karim's sustained efforts trying to preserve his unadulterated self. Karim,even as an understanding husband and father is still part of a patriarchal society. He believes in his own truth. For instance, one day when he is coming back from the city,he sees his kids selling flowers on the roadside and the first reaction he gives is:" Don't I provide for you enough?" However the only dream his son Hussein (Hamed Aghazi), has is to clean up the storage,buy some fish to let them reproduce there and to become a millionaire by selling more and more fish:)No matter how brusque he looks like Karim is a good-hearted guy like any other major Majidi character. Deeply and genuinely concerned with faith,bad men don't seem to be taking much of a space in Majidi's movies. Unlike other Iranian directors like Abbas Kiarostami he seems to have undertaken a mission of creating simple but sweet movies. Last but not least,IMDb's language information may sometimes be not fully correct. Majidi uses more and more the Turkish language in his movies. Song of Sparrows include more Turkish words than his previous movies maybe because of the fact that Karim and the local people around him speak a Persian mixed with Azerbaijani Turkish. The song Karim sings at the back of the truck and the song he sings to his wife are in Turkish. The songs to which they listen on the truck's tape recorder are also in Turkish. It may be just me but I guess Song of Sparrows is also a more hopeful and less dark movie than the previous Majidi flicks. As someone who have seen his movies like Baran and The Colour of Paradise, this one is easier to watch without tears. All in all, it is a purely humanitarian,an overwhelmingly sweet movie that you will just like!
DICK STEEL I've only seen but a handful of films from Majid Majidi the master Iranian filmmaker, and he continues to open my eyes to Iranian cinema with his latest The Song of Sparrows, telling the tale of a down and out of luck Karim (starring regular Reza Najie), a general worker in an ostrich farm, and the life of his family in a quaint little village. Being the perpetual loser in life, sometimes as a consequence of victimization, we follow his misadventures as a small time guy being caught up with opportunities in the big city, again being the puppet on whom Chance chooses to smile upon.There are plenty of comedic chaos in the film which makes this quite the delight to watch. In the beginning we see how he orders a group of children around when they were treading around sludge waters in an abandoned well to find the hearing aid belonging to his daughter. Taking charge over the operations and barking orders to the kids, we discover he's not exactly that inspirational a leader even amongst kids, being devoid of clever ideas whose bark is more severe than his bite. Then comes the escape of an ostrich in the farm which he and a group of fellow workers fail to recapture, leading to his dismissal from work.With time on his hands, he journeys to Tehran to get his daughter's damaged hearing aid fixed, though the exorbitant repair costs provides additional headache. But he stumbles upon the motorcycle taxi business in the city by accident, and discovers it pays quite handsomely. Before you can say "opportunity", he's already on to it, and in a short span of time made a lot more money than he could have imagined, meeting with a myriad of characters, and with the cash, stocking up his home with material wealth. This segment of the story was made quite enjoyable by Karim's customers, some of whom are good to him, while others seek some incredible ways to exploit.There's a sense of measured hysteria toward the end, but I had felt it was somewhat a statement made on how the ambitions stemming from opportunity would have presented an avenue for misguided corruption, as well as the failure to see the finer things in life that mattered a lot more. The son portrays the wishes of the common folk, in wanting to seek out their interest and a better life quite off tangent with the father figure of authority, who continues to punish his son and his friends, and discouraging them from pursuing their now broken dreams, which involved quiet determination in wanting to take over and clean up a filthy water storage tank for fish rearing and profit. The patriarch figure determines and dictates what can, or cannot be done, and doesn't hesitate to use a little violence to slap his orders across.From success to loss, the final arc was one of the most colourful, and filled with some picture perfect imagery that would leave you spellbound, especially the scene with the hundreds of goldfish flapping around in need for water. Majid Madjidi once again crafted a film that will leave you reflecting upon the layers and messages hidden behind a film which came across as deceptively simple, on one level seeking to entertain, and on another a probable commentary of life hidden underneath the simplistic veneer.