His “personal free comprehension” of events that are mostly skimmed over by the Qu’ran itself – there’s a blur of perpetually squabbling tribesmen – will be demanding viewing for anyone not versed in Islamic history. Majidi chronicles the first ripples of this revolutionary wave in a handsome, pre-CGI-era epic style. We do hear him speak – although as first lines go, “The weather smells pleasant here” is no “Shit, I’m still only in Saigon.”īut it would be a distortion to get too hung up on the representation question, given what an evocative and engrossing account of Islam’s gestation Majidi has mustered: in effect, Muhammad’s origin story.įraming events around a decade after his initial revelation, with his nascent band of followers under threat of eradication from pagan Meccans, most of the film is an extended flashback to the prophet’s childhood and early adolescence – revolving around his mother Aminah (Mina Sadati), grandfather Adbul-Muttalib (Alireza Shoja Nouri) and uncle Abu Talib (Mehdi Pakdel).Ī sequence of extraordinary events – beginning with a vast flock of birds driving off a horde of elephant-riding Abyssinians just prior to his birth – suggest that far from a very naughty boy, this might be the messiah they have on their hands. We first glimpse Muhammad as an adult from behind, shrouded totally in white, then there are snatches of romping baby legs, or Steadicam shots shadowing the boy prophet’s keffiyeh-swathed head, never without a faint Jedi aura. But Majidi’s lavish $40m film is nothing if not well-intentioned, and what we do see – courtesy of Apocalypse Now DoP Vittorio Storaro, always verges on the symbolic.
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