Psychoanalytic Criticism of Majid Majidi's the Color of Paradise

Psychoanalytic Criticism of Majid Majidi's The Color of Paradise

The Color of Paradise (known as Rang-e Khoda in Persian - literally "Color of God"), directed by Majid Majidi, is an Iranian film that is wrought with psychological contrast between the 2 main characters, Hashem and his 8-year-old son Mohammad, who is blind. Hashem and Mohammad are two souls, each representative of the past and future of the other and each undergoing a process of individuation and transformation as described by Carl Jung. Hashem is motivated throughout the film by his desire for a life of satisfaction and security for him and his family, while Mohammad is driven by his quest for "The Real," as described by Lacan, which, in Mohammad's case, is to "know" God.

The Color of Paradise begins only after the words "To the Glory of God" appear on a black screen and the screen remains black for a few minutes, while we hear the voices of boys and their teacher as radio music plays in the background. Majid Majidi begins his film by giving us the aural experience of a blind person before substituting a visual one for all those who can see. The soundtrack remains important throughout the film with its alternating chorus of woodpeckers, wind, birds, insects, rain, footfalls, and rushing streams, as these are the sounds through which Mohammad "sees" the world.

The action of the film opens in Tehran at a school for the blind attended by Mohammad. It is the end of the term and Mohammad is waiting for his father to pick him up so that he can return to his small village near the Caspian Sea for the summer holidays. When Hashem arrives late and first begs the school administrator to keep Mohammad for the break, we are given our first glimpse into the anxiety with which Hashem navigates the world. When the administrator refuses his request and rebukes Hashem for attempting to shirk his responsibilities, it is not long before the viewer witnesses manifestations of Hashem's castration anxiety. Hashem feels deep shame about his son's disability. He feels that his son's blindness is a reflection of his own manhood, that to have produced an heir that is imperfect and, perhaps, unable to care for him when he is old, makes him less of a man. Several times throughout the film Hashem is faced with the option of saving Mohammad from danger or allowing him to fall out of a tree (this incident takes place in the first minutes of the film), tumble down a ravine, or drown. In the first two incidents Hashem hesitates and ultimately chooses inaction, although Mohammad remains safe. In the third incident, Hashem hesitates but chooses to act, although his hesitation has dire consequences for Mohammad and for himself.

Hashem attempts to hide his son's condition from all through avoidance. He avoids relationships with the other men in the village, for fear they will judge his manhood. He misinterprets the advances of the other children in the village toward Mohammad as cruelty and contempt, rather than the friendly playfulness they actually are. Hashem projects his fears onto his son and, though he loves Mohammad, treats him with resentment. We learn that Hashem, who is a widower, intends to remarry and that his betrothed does not know of Mohammad's existence. Hashem fears that her family will perceive Mohammad's blindness as a bad omen and will not allow the union.

On the journey to their village, we also are able to study the character of the child Mohammad. We have seen that his father seems to live in the spiritually restrictive order of "the Name-of-the-Father," as originally theorized by Lacan and described by Tyson as the time that "we learn the rules and prohibitions of our society, and those rules and prohibitions were and still are authored by the Father, that is, by men in authority past and present" (Tyson 31). However, Mohammad has had a greater spiritual progression. He believes in God and seeks to "know" Him through his extraordinary senses of hearing and touch. At the opening of the film we saw Mohammad learning to read and write in Braille. Now we see him using this knowledge to try to understand what God is communicating with him through nature. Mohammad and the immortal, God, can be described in terms of Carl Jung's theory of Natural Transformation. Mohammad and the immortal are a "pair of Dioscuri, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal, and who, though always together, can never be made completely one" (Jung 131). However, Mohammad seeks this "oneness." He "reads" the pebbles in a stream bed and the bumps on the back of a fern leaf, and listens to the "writing" of a woodpecker in a tree. Mohammad is full of joy and without fear. Tyson describes this as the knowledge that, "God the Father will be there for us and with us" (Tyson 23). Mohammad is lacking self-consciousness and, although it seems he has attained a level of spiritual awareness of "The Real," it also seems that he still exists in Lacan's "Imaginary Order," as his perceptions of the world around him are without cynicism.

Mohammad lost his mother at a tender age, and perhaps has replaced that crucial connection to his mother with a connection to nature. Melanie Klein describes this phenomenon in her essay Sense of Guilt, Love and Creativeness, "The relation to nature, which arouses such strong feelings of love, appreciation, admiration, and devotion, has much in common with the relation to one's mother, as has long been recognized by poets. The manifold gifts of nature are equated with whatever we have received in the early days from our mother" (Klein & Riviere, 108).

As they arrive at their little village, Hashem and Mohammad are greeted by Hashem's mother and Mohammad's two young sisters. It is clear right away that these three adore Mohammad and harbor none of the resentment and fear possessed by Hashem. Mohammad's sisters have not yet begun their summer holidays, so Mohammad asks to attend school with them. He is welcomed warmly into the school by the instructor and by the other children, but Hashem is, again, fearful that Mohammad will be judged and that he, in turn, will be emasculated. Mohammad spends time with his sisters and his grandmother and continues to listen for God's message in the sounds of nature. He talks to himself, deciphering the code through his knowledge of Braille. Jung discusses this phenomenon of holding a conversation with our inner immortal, "You need not be insane to hear his voice. On the contrary, it is the simplest and most natural thing available" (Jung 131).

Hashem is a mere unskilled laborer and his family is poor, so his options are