I have seen this movie and I liked it very much.But,I could not understand the ending.Did Mohammad die.If he did not,then why did his hand turn gold?If he did ,then why is the last chapter in the movie titled "A MIRACLE".Please help.
shareWell, Mohammad died in the end and got to see God the only way he knew (could). All through the movie, Mohammad is searching for God by listening to and feeling the environment around him. He wants to know why God made him blind if he loved him. At the end of the movie a miracle happened and he saw God. This is my interpretation and I could be wrong. :)
shareI believe Mohammad lives. Throughout the entire film, birds are heard and not seen. There are a few exceptions like the bird Mohammad rescues at the beginning and the other he handles to widdle. But we never see birds in the air, only their call, their way of communicating. At the end, when Mohammad's father wakes up on the beach to the call of a bird, he sees (as we see for the first time) a bird flying. And then he runs to the boy and craddles him, weeping, finally loving. And then a flock of birds come, followed by a very high angle shot and a glow upon the hand of Mohammad, who wakes up and is able to move his hand.
The surviving is a miracle, no doubt. But both of their toils through the river, and the awakening, signify a rebirth. When Mohammad falls into the river his father hesistates, and we know he is thinking of leaving his son to die, but at that moment he realises his son means everything to him now and not nothing.
I think it is likey that little Mohammad died.
If you remember, when he was crying to the carpenter, in that absolutely fantastically acted scene, he says that he has been searching all his life for God (whom his teacher told him loves blind people more)but can never find God. So only in death does he meet God and his hand turns gold.
Also, when the Grandmother dies, her face also turns gold.
I agree that Mohammed died in the end. Throughout the movie we see him paying close attention to nature, and creatures of nature. He was so in tune with, and adapted so incredibly well with, his environment no matter the location (school, granny's home, his sisters' school, the blind carpenter's shop/home).
Mohammed could find "good" in every situation. Perhaps it appeared that he was greatly saddened when he was dumped at the shop/home of the carpenter, but later we saw him adapting to his mentor and enjoying his surroundings and work. Scenes of Mohammed's adaptation to his environment and situations were numerous, and contrast greatly with the scenes of his father's misery and sadness. Mohammed's father's happiness was ephemeral, slipping further from being fully realised with every act of selfishness.
While Mohammed heard creatures around him, and perhaps even had a gift of understanding their communication in ways sighted people don't understand (recall the counting of woodpecker taps and recitation of alphabetic combinations when touching wheat grains, and when he said his granny's hand _appeared_ white?) ... his father experienced just the opposite. His father heard this scary, tormenting sound in the woods. His father paid no meaningful attention to the flora and the fauna -- at least until the final minute of the movie. I believe that his father experienced an epiphany upon Mohammed's death -- and for the FIRST time heard the calls of nature as something pleasant and beautiful, not something scary and tormenting.
The bath in light, as mentioned by hauman60, seems to represent the light and grace of God -- both in the death of granny and in the death of Mohammed. I think the title of the movie, "Colour of Paradise," also reflects that Heaven is Paradise -- that specific word is often used, Paradise -- in Muslim faith. Hence to me, the bath of colour upon death we see in the film is the Colour of Paradise (Heaven).
The young man who played Mohammed did an incredible job, didn't he? So talented and moving. /spin_dr
I agree with you. I think he lives which is part of the miracle and the other part is that because of this near miss tragedy, father and son finally unite and the father shows his son the love he has denied him for most of his life.
shareI actually agree with what you said. This was my exact impression. I may need to watch it again, but I believe Mohammed lives and that this is a rebirth of father/son relationship. I am still not quite sure what the unnatural horse-like sounds the the father heard in some scenes; perhaps they were just in his mind.
But when the the grandmother dies, it is quite obvious. She seems to be releasing her soul for the sake of Mohammed - in fact, he did tell Mohammed "I would die for you." And I think she did.
So Mohammed lives. The final scene is the light of God (and the soul of his grandmother) shining (figuratively) through his hands.
What a powerful movie. I never thought of watching foreign films but this changed my mind.
He died, but his glowing, if you noticed was also used on his grandmother before her death, was his reaching God. His hand moved and 'touched' God, just as his grandmother smiled when she glowed then died.
shareIn the Muslim faith there is no 'visage' of God, that is to say where as in say, Christianity there is an image of Christ. In Muslim they don't have that, Mohammad (can be sure they picked that name for a reason) was more in tune with nature and was finally able to find god at the end. Remember when he's crying to the wood cutter about how no one loves him and he can't see god.
shareAccording to an interview with the writer-director, Majid Majidi, published arouind 6 years ago, the boy lives at the end. His explanation is that by giving life back to the boy God is rewarding the father for finally having seen the light. Majidi said that many people opposed this ending and wanted the boy to die but he felt that the death of the boy would, in a way, also be the father's death and he felt that the father should have been rewarded for his spritual awakening.
share[deleted]
oh, thanks for your explanation.althought the boy moved his fingers i thought he had died at the end because his hand had turned gold like his grandmother's face and i felt a little upset about the end. But now that i know that a miracle happened i feel glad about the end of the movie.
shareI think the best clue is that the grandma's face glows before she dies. That says it all
share[deleted]
If you look at it from a semantic level, its clear the boy lived at the end.
If he died, he would have died in the river. If the scene depicted him feeling God, one suspects the boy would have done it at the moment of his death, not moments/hours? afterwards.
I took the ending to mean that nature was granting him a favor as he had been taught to do (as in the example of his grandmother) and as he himself did in the rescue of the bird. It was a miracle, and it was granted then and there. I believe he was head when his father picked him up. How could anybody, much less a child survive those rapids? You all saw 'Deliverane'! LOL!
Regardless of what it meant, it had a mystical ending that will have me tossing it over my head for quite a while.
In my earlier posting above, I had referred to an interview with Majidi in a separate discussion thread. The interview comes from a book called "Color of God" (title of the movie in Iran) & contains the full script of Color of Paradise plus an in-depth interview with Majidi on this movie, essays by various critics on the movie and stills from the film. It was published in 1999/2000. Unfortunately the book is in Farsi (Persian) & I'm unaware of any translations.
In reply to the ending, I'm translating a few of the specific questions on this subject as best as I can here:
Q- And it appears that the boy is dead?
Majidi - But my feeling was that this father has for years been his own prisoner and been in a conflict with life and existence. These impurities in his core had prevented him from seeing the world as one should. Now that he has found spiritual cleansing and the will to live and seeing the world in a different light ..... I felt that if the son dies the father has not been rewarded.There were people who objected to this form of resurrection and believed that death would also be an appropriate ending. But this death, would have also been the father's death. Because the river, from the first time that we see it, is their destiny.Yet, how does destiny want to play with them? It wants to somehow direct them to the correct path, and when they get there, should it want to take everything from them? It was as though God had reawakened him, and having done so, would God take back this gift? I didn't think so as the son was part of his father's being. I felt that to recognise the father's reawakening, the son must be resurrected and the father be rewarded. Because we believe that even in this world people should be rewarded for the good deeds that they do. At least they should get some inner satisfaction. This can happen in this world too. Anyhow, God takes the father's hand and rewards him by giving back life to his son.
Q- This reward is sent by the seagulls, isn't it? I mean they are assigned this task, like the fish in Children of Heaven.
Majidi- Yes, these are visual metaphors. The metaphor is also reflected in the soundtrack. In Children of Heaven the fish act, here the seaguls which has a very self-evident meaning and is not surplus to the context.
I was unbelievably moved by this movie. It touched my heart like no other movie has done before. There were many parts that fascinated me but I was especially fascinated by the ending.
My opinion, before reading Majid Majidi answer, is that God took Mohammad. God works in mysterious ways and this was one way. The father tried so hard to "accidently" get rid of Mohammad but desperetly failed. As the father picks up his son from the carpenter's house, we feel a sense of paternal love. But, as they cross the bridge and Mohammad falls in, we expected that the father hurriedly rescue his son (he had the opportunity). Because he still questioned his love for Mohammad, God took Mohammad. We can assume that Mohammad is a much better person than the father and will probably never be happy with the father. So, God took Mohammad and made him an angel. The white color of the his hand and that of granny's face is a symbol that they are angels in heaven. This goes to show us that it is only God who decides who shall live and who shall die and when. The father isin't a religious person and questions the existance of God. This scene demonstartes that it is He and He alone that determines our fate.
Also, why do you think the bride's family called off the wedding?
Wasn't it to do with Mohammad's not having enough money or losing his land? I'm pretty sure it was in the movie somewhere
shareAre u guys sure he died??...im pretty sure he lived cuz when his hands turned gold it seemed like he was moving his fingers, indicating hes alive.
Smoke Weed Every Day......
Guys come on, for me was pretty clear.. he died (in this kind of movies there's no happy ending or USA happy endings) but the emotive part is that while he's passing away God Touched his hand and he could fell it, is like the maximus expression of what he's or was looking for. Now you can imagine the rest if you have similar beliefs.
shareI thought the bride's family called off the wedding because they saw the grandmother's death as a bad omen - that the father had bad karma. They seemed content enough with what he had brought when he was at their home.
shareFor those intersted, the book of the movie that I referred to in my earlier posting has now been published in English. Information about ordering this book, together with THE COMPLETE SCRIPT OF COLOR OF PARADAISE IN ENGLISH !! , plus tons of other relevant info, are available on Majid Majidi's web site: http://www.cinemajidi.com/
shareI'm glad corrosion-2 has the producer's words, because they agree with how I saw it, and I was going to post to that effect.
The movie is as much about Mohammed's father as it is about the little boy- the father has always felt Fate or God has singled him out for punishment.
Throughout the latter part of the movie after they've left Teheran, we see these rustic and charming homes, beautiful valleys, in short, it is Paradise- except that without love, Paradise is living hell for Mohammed's father.
When he learns on the bridge how much he truly loves his little blind boy being swept away,almost as an answer to his inner wishes- and then throws his own life away into the rapids after Mohammed, then love enters his life for the first time. And then that love brings Mohammed back to this world.
So for the first time he, and by extension, his little blind boy can live. In this sense, the author is saying we are all actually blind as well, if we are blind to love.
The great Persian mystic poets such as Hafiz said the same in so many words.
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