I don't know if this movie is considered a comedy, but soooo many funny things happen it's hilarious from start to finish. The main thing that comes to mind is murphy's law (if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all; or, if anything can go wrong, it will.) I also really enjoyed seeing the Iranian landscape and their way of life. Everything that can be used or fixed is utilized. This movie is serious, funny, heartwarming, and good clean family type of entertainment. I thought the acting was great, and the characters endearing. This has got to be one of the best foreign films I've seen. Best thing since Slumdog Millionaire. Too bad it wasn't in English, but than maybe that added to the overall sense of the movie.

Majid Majidi's favorite man,Reza Naji who played the construction overseer Memar in Baran (2001),the father of the blind boy Ali in Bacheha-Ye aseman (1997),and Mortaza the hospital mate of Youssef (Parviz Parastui)in Beed-e majnoon (2005)plays Karim this time. Karim works in an ostrich farm.He doesn't make much but he seems to be contented with what he has with his simple family. One day he gets the ax when one of the ostriches runs away.On his way back home, he finds out that her daughter has dropped her hearing aid in the sludge of the local storage. Soon after, he travels to Tehran to have the hearing aid fixed.When he is mistaken for a cabbie with his motorbike he starts making his living in Tehran.Through heavy traffic he carries goods like- even-a refrigerator and many sorts of people.Through the bustling city life we witness Karim's sustained efforts trying to preserve his unadulterated self. Karim,even as an understanding husband and father is still part of a patriarchal society. He believes in his own truth. For instance, one day when he is coming back from the city,he sees his kids selling flowers on the roadside and the first reaction he gives is:" Don't I provide for you enough?" However the only dream his son Hussein (Hamed Aghazi), has is to clean up the storage,buy some fish to let them reproduce there and to become a millionaire by selling more and more fish:)No matter how brusque he looks like Karim is a good-hearted guy like any other major Majidi character. Deeply and genuinely concerned with faith,bad men don't seem to be taking much of a space in Majidi's movies. Unlike other Iranian directors like Abbas Kiarostami he seems to have undertaken a mission of creating simple but sweet movies. Last but not least,IMDb's language information may sometimes be not fully correct. Majidi uses more and more the Turkish language in his movies. Song of Sparrows include more Turkish words than his previous movies maybe because of the fact that Karim and the local people around him speak a Persian mixed with Azerbaijani Turkish. The song Karim sings at the back of the truck and the song he sings to his wife are in Turkish. The songs to which they listen on the truck's tape recorder are also in Turkish. It may be just me but I guess Song of Sparrows is also a more hopeful and less dark movie than the previous Majidi flicks. As someone who have seen his movies like Baran and The Colour of Paradise, this one is easier to watch without tears. All in all, it is a purely humanitarian,an overwhelmingly sweet movie that you will just like!

Majid Majidi has gone and done it again. He has crafted a simple story of a loving family man (although not without some minor flaws)who has several humbling experiences in life. Karim (played very well by Majidi regular,Mohammad Amir Naji,here known as Reza Naji)has a cushy job working at an ostrich farm,keeping watch over the king sized birds. Trouble erupts when one of the birds escapes from the pen,resulting in Karim losing his job. Good fortune happens to drop in Karim's lap when he ends up becoming a taxi driver in downtown Tehran. Other plot elements are dropped into the mix in the form of his eldest daughter,Haniyeh (Shabnam Aklaghi)who is partially deaf,loses her hearing aid,because of her younger brother,Hussein (Hamed Aghazi),who wants to start a goldfish hatchery in an unused well,who loses the hearing aid in the well/muck hole that it is. Toss in an understanding & loving wife,caring neighbors,and others,and you have yourself a loving film that is a treat for the eye & other senses. Majid Majidi directs from a screenplay written by Majidi & Mehran Kashani. The cinematography by Tooraj Mansouri successfully manages to capture the rugged Iranian landscape,with momentary bursts of colour (check out the scene of Naji carrying a blue door across the bleak desert-like landscape of the Iranian countryside,as well as some other breath taking scenes that are a treat for the eye). Rated PG by the MPAA for some brief,rude language,but contains nothing else to offend.

Iranian director Majid Majidi is known for sweet and often sentimental films that contrast with the more acerbic films of his countrymen Jafar Panahi and Abbas Kiarostami. Though no Iranian film has made much headway at the box office in the U.S., films such as Majidi's Color of Paradise have found their audience on DVD and he has received numerous awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film for Children of Heaven. His latest film, The Song of Sparrows, which appeared at several film festivals last year, has now opened in limited release in New York and Los Angeles and it carries on in the same tradition of simplicity, warmth, and a substantial dollop of sentimentality.Reza Naji, who portrayed the blind boy's father in The Color of Paradise, is Karim, a poor man who works on an ostrich farm in rural Iran. Karim, a devoted husband and father of three, loses his job when one of his birds, a symbol of nature, wanders into the hills. Though he chases after the bird, putting on an ostrich costume in a comic attempt to capture the bird, it is to no avail. Compounding his misfortune, his oldest daughter Haniyeh ((Shabnam Aklaghi) drops her hearing aid into the water-storage tank so that it now requires expensive repairs, money that the family does not have. Traveling to Tehran to try to fix the hearing aid, Karim inadvertently finds that people, some with considerable means, mistake his motorbike for a taxi, giving him a new and lucrative line of work as a cabbie.Clearly visible, however, is the contrast between Karim's wealthy customers and the poor beggars who wait at the side of the road and the job exposes him to the seamier side of big city life and the ugly grey face of crowded Tehran. As a taxi driver, Karim is bilked out of his fare, threatened with reprisals if he does not find another spot to wait for customers, listens to men shouting at each other on their cell phones, and gradually succumbs to the allure of accumulation. Every night he brings home another piece of useless junk that he finds on his route and they begin to pile up in his backyard.Slowly he begins to lose his generous and honest nature and even his children become corrupted. His youngest son Hussein (Hamed Aghazi) makes plans to become a millionaire by cleaning out a sludge-filled pit and using it to breed and sell goldfish, unaware of what is involved. When the fish are accidentally lost, the boys are overcome with grief but Karim, who has been forced into self reflection by an accident, reminds them that "the world is a dream and a lie," forecasting the family's return to sanity and joy, exemplified by an exquisite ostrich dance that brings a note of light-hearted grace.