Rumor of his special power spreads, and he becomes a target for kidnapping: Cue some additional action scenes of hand-to-hand combat. Given that there’s a limit to the interesting things babies can do, the story starts to perk up when the 6-year-old Muhammad (always clad in sparkling white) breaks pagan idols and heals Halimeh as she lies on her deathbed. Likewise, but much later in the narrative, a Christian priest recognizes in Muhammad the values of Jesus. With the baby’s arrival, barren nature transforms into a green and abundant oasis. Meanwhile, elders of the Jewish community also recognize the portents surrounding Muhammad’s birth and try to track his whereabouts.

Pious patriarch Abdolmotaleb, who recognizes that the infant is special, dispatches Muhammad to the desert under the care of Bedouin foster parents Hamzeh (Hamidreza Tajdolat) and Halimeh (Sareh Bayat). His conniving uncle Aboulahab (Mohammad Asgari) and jealous wife Jamileh (Rana Azadivar) refuse to allow their maid to be the baby’s wet nurse.

But Muhammad’s arrival sparks some discontent in the Bani-Hashim clan. The hackneyed visual iconography used to depict Muhammad’s birth to Ameneh (played by the beatifically smiling Mina Sadati) resembles that which usually accompanies the birth of Christ - twinkling starry sky, bright lights - although, of course, no manger. A firm believer in only one god, he is also the guardian of the Kaaba, a site of worship and pilgrimage. Muhammad’s grandfather Abdolmotaleb (a scenery-chewing turn by Alireza Shoja Nouri, who during his time at the Farabi Cinema Foundation was one of the architects of the post-revolutionary Iranian cinema) is the elder of the Bani-Hashim clan, which is part of the Quraysh tribe. It’s the first of many action setpieces featuring risible but no doubt expensive effects work - in this case, a whirlwind of computer-generated birds that repel the advancing warriors by dropping sharp stones. Muhammad’s birth in Mecca in the year 570 follows the failed invasion of the city by the fierce and flashily clad Abyssian general Abrahe (Arash Falahat Pishe) and his fearsome elephant army. But in the scenes that bookend the film and are set 50 years later, his words are repeated by his uncle Aboutaleb (Mehdi Pakdel). However, since the central part of the film covers Muhammad’s life before he became a prophet, we hear the actors playing him at the ages of 6, 8 and 12 (Alireza Jalili, Hossein Jalali and Amir Heidari, respectively). At the press conference, he explained that he and cinematographer Storaro customized a Steadicam especially to show the prophet’s point of view. Majidi respects Islamic convention by never showing Muhammad’s face and shooting him mostly from the back. Right now, the film’s main takeaway is that Islam, Judaism and Christianity share similar values and roots. Given the surge of worldwide interest in what Islam is all about, and that the pic is likely to be Iran’s Oscar submission for best foreign-language film, it would pay to invest in some title cards providing pertinent background information so that non-Muslim viewers know the relationships between the dramatis personae, how the Bani-Hashim relate to the Quraysh tribe, and just who was worshipping what and ruling where at the time. These cliched scenes, in combination with the elaborate but cheesy-looking special effects, register mostly as second-rate copies of Western cinematic conventions.Īlso problematic, at least for offshore audiences, is that those unfamiliar with the history of Islam - and the story behind the man considered by Muslims to be the last prophet sent to humankind by God - may be more than a little lost. Restricted by both its narrative scope (it follows Muhammad from the year of his birth to the age of 12) and religious prohibitions against showing the prophet’s face, Majidi tries to enliven matters whenever possible with action scenes (legendary battles, chases through the marketplace, pilgrims circling the Kaaba, hand-to-hand combat, camel caravans, horses galloping across the desert), but action is not this helmer’s forte.

Muhammad messenger of god 2015 movie