Title: The Willow TreeRelease Date: 05/20/2008
Label/Distributor: New Yorker
Rating: Unrated
Retail Price: $29.95
Cast: Parviz Parastoei, Mahmoud Behraznia, Soghra Abisi, Roya Teymourian, Melika Eslafi
Director: Majid Majidi
Running Time: 96
DVD Video Options: Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed
DVD Audio Options: English, Subtitled; Farsi, Original Language
UPC Code: 717119104245
The Willow Tree
By Mekado Murphy -- Video Business, 4/21/2008
NEW YORKERStreet: May 20
Prebook: April 30
> Iranian drama about a blind man who regains his sight.
In Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s visually captivating film, Parviz Parastui stars as Youssef, a literature professor and writer who has been blind since childhood. When a medical procedure restores his sight, the results are less than positive. Youssef becomes depressed and reacts violently to what many around him believe is a new chance at life. The film is a meditation on life’s complexities and what can happen when a person’s dreams come true, but they aren’t ready for the challenge of fulfilling those dreams. The film threatens to be crushed by the heavy weight of its sadness, but Majidi keeps it from veering into melodrama.
Shelf Talk: Those familiar with leading Iranian director Majidi, whose work includes 1999’s brilliant Children of Heaven, will certainly want to see this 2005 effort. Also be sure to recommend Willow Tree to anyone interested in contemporary Middle Eastern cinema.
Foreign-language drama, color, NR (nothing offensive), 96 min., DVD $29.95, Farsi with English subtitlesExtras: none
Director: Majid Majidi
First Run: L, August 2007 <$1 mil.























