Majid Majidi’s “The Color of Paradise” (1999) is an Iranian film about a blind boy named Mohammed who searches with his fingertips for the love of God (what a loaded statement!) But more accurately, it is the story of how Mohammed learns to experience the life and color around him through his touch, taste, smell, and hearing in order to uncover that even though he is blind, God loves him still and has provided him a different way of seeing the world.
I suppose the easiest way to approach the theme of love in this film is through that of familial love. Mohammed’s father Hashem forsakes his son while he seeks the approval of his fiance’s family. Fearing they would take his son’s blindness as a bad omen, Hashem sends Mohammed away, much to the anguish of Mohammed’s grandmother, who eventually dies from the illness incurred in her misery. This death is what ultimately calls off the wedding (ironically because it is taken as a bad omen). Meanwhile, Mohammed spends his time with a blind carpenter and asserts that he believes God doesn’t love him because he made him blind. Later, Hashem, full of regret, goes back to get his son again but a bridge collapses underneath them as they cross a river and Mohammed appears to drown. When Hashem finds Mohammed on the beach later, he appears dead, but as the film closes we realize he is reaching out as if “reading” nature with his fingertips, wherein he discovers the beauty all around him and that God indeed does love him for providing him this gift.
In this film, the love of God becomes essential to Mohammed because of the lack thereof from everyone else around him. Almost as a last-ditch effort to find love, he begins wondering about the complexity of God’s love, how far it stretches, and indeed if it reaches him. This type of blind-faith-love is really interesting, especially since the boy searching for it is indeed actually blind (ha!). But how is anyone to really know if “God” loves them? How would one ever be able to prove the extent of that love? I believe Majid Majidi came just about as close to proof as you can possibly get.
