BARAN
Directed by Majid Majidi
Love transcends and transforms. Love has the capacity to metamorphose the grim and dirt to precious pearls. Love turns the most selfish of all to become the most selfless, capable of sacrificing one’s own self for love. Love makes you one with your loved one. You lose your identity and get enmeshed in a soulful union with the one you love. Love in a sense frees you from your tiny self. For ages Sufi mysticism has centred its locus on such feelings. The feelings of the dervish, with the penchant of losing himself in the love of the “great.” This love is that of universal brotherhood, that of humanity. This unfathomable love is determined to immerse and entwine the entire universe into one soul. There is no “other”. You become the same as the “other” losing yourself in true selfless love.
For ages, Persian poetry, imbibed from the deep mystic Sufism lyrically translates these feelings through words. One of the greatest Persian Sufi poets Jelaluddin Rumi in the below mentioned poem sort of crystallises this call of the inner self to liberate itself from its own tiny-self and become one with the universe.
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.
Majidi’s Baran this time is almost like a call by the Sufi dervish to lose yourself in the love for humanity. Throughout the movie, we see the protagonist Lateef’s slow transformation from a mean, all-self young boy to a lover who sacrifices everything he has for his loved one, without even the expectation of reciprocation. We find Lateef’s tiny soul almost becoming buoyant in love and taking a flight to reach the firmament.
And as suggested by the above poem, almost lyrically the “silence” (as a signifier of your complete immersion in love) has been used throughout. The doe-eyed loved one of Lateef is silent throughout the movie, yet with an inviting gaze luring Lateef to drown himself in this silence and quietude. Lateef literally gets “born in the colors”, escaping from the ghetto like darkness of the construction site, following Baran in the pastel shaded village by lanes and the green draped girls.
Yet this is not merely a love story. Lateef here is just not a young boy, falling in love with the sorrowful Baran disguising herself as a worker boy. He is in form of Majidi’s appeal to the world, to reach out and love the “other” human, who might be from a different geography labelled as a “separate nation”. Throughout this subtle love story, Majidi has very carefully stitched in small elements the plight of the Afghan refugees working illegally at Iran. They get exploited by people like Memar who employ them at cheaper rates but also is their protector. In fact the movie starts with a tag-line showing in 2001 there are almost 1.4 million Afghan refugees in Iran. However they are unwanted. Hence quite expectedly, Majidi makes Lateef fall in love with such an “unwanted” Afghan refugee girl. His initial disgust and anguish for the refugee having made a dent at his easy-going job is relinquished. And this is not mere adolescence infatuation. He truly sacrifices everything to help her out to go back to Afghanistan, without ever thinking of losing her forever. He sells his identity card, thereby almost losing his identity in love
Also throughout, the reticent Baran has been presented as a mystical figure sometimes disappearing behind the curtains, the thick mist and the turquoise veils. And Lateef like a dervish running to and fro pursuing her. At the end of the movie, Baran goes away amidst the rains. However Lateef, it seems gets her truly to himself carrying her impressions in his soul forever.
Very intelligently certain elements of a love-story fable have been used by Majidi. Hence the shoe appears. While leaving for Afghanistan on a rain clad day, Baran’s shoe gets stuck in the mud. Lateef gently retrieves it for Baran’s tiny feet to slip into it. Apparently, this Cinderella like folklorish scene does not seem like culmination of a physical union. Rather it is a spiritual union, transcending beyond borders and boundaries, space and time. It is almost a hope of humanity being restored in the souls of all forever.
The rain-water washes away the thick imprint of Baran’s foot from the mud while Lateef drenches himself in the endless rain. By that time, Lateef has already lost his identity in love (sold his identity card) and hence he needs no Baran by his side. He has become one with her and inseparable thereby.
Rainwater appears at the end of the movie and almost appears as a cleanser. May be Majidi wanted to end the movie, with a hope of cleansing our dusty, captivated souls and fill them with the spirit of love and humanity. May be such movies would eventually cure the earth of the problems of hating other men and discarding them on the base of their race, class, caste and identity.
I can wait a lifetime for such Rains.
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