The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam

The movie begins with this long haired, dorky kid whose an Iranian-American in search of his ancestry -- or something. His older brother gets hospitalized and begins relaying the story of Omar Khayyam to the kid. Surprise though! He dies about half way through and so the kid makes a trek to London to hook up with some old lady who has a copy of the book -- because no one else on earth could possibly possess such a thing.

Lady tucks in the kid in front of the fireplace. Kid somehow ends up in Iran talking to his grandfather with a horrible, indistinguishable accent (by the way, everyone has a horrible accent in this movie) who completes the story for him.

Meanwhile, the actual tale and life of the man gets lost between all this garbage. Is it there to fill time? I have no idea. I was tempted to stop the film after about 15 minutes but decided to see it through to the end. Glad I didn't pay for it.

The only thing amusing about this is that the Sultan looks sort of like Steve O, but probably doesn't do anything demented involving staplers. This pic is bad even by after school special standards.

Pick up a translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and read it instead. Nice movie for 5 year olds -- I guess. Creators were no doubt well intentioned, but when you're dealing with a man of this stature there's no room for error, otherwise it's just flat out disrespect. If you are a lover of Islamic culture and history just avoid this.

Hmm -- and some of these overly positive reviews seem mighty suspect, especially when a couple are structured identically.

I saw this movie last night in San Diego and was truly enthralled by it. As I am not an Omar Khayyam scholar, the details of whether the story is accurate, has enough Persian language in it, etc. are not important. Those people went to the movie expecting to learn all about Omar Khayyam. They missed the point of the movie, which is that we need to pass on the best parts of our cultures to our children. Why is a story important in a culture? There is a quote in the movie about how we remember the things that touch us in the heart. This movie is about Omar K., but it is more about how we should cherish our literature, stories, cultures. It gave me the same feelings that I had when seeing Roots for the first time. As for the acting Vanessa Redgrave is amazing, and so is the little boy who plays Kamran. As for the scenery, music, editing - I haven't seen anything better this year.

Omar Khayyam was a Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet in the 11th Century, famous today for Edward Fitzgerald's 1859 translations of his works into English. The Keeper is a well-meaning and handsome (if a bit stolid, and poorly edited at times) attempt to render his life meaningful today, written by Iranian-American lawyer/filmmaker Kayvan Mashayekh.

To keep things relevant, Mashayekh presents through the eyes of a young Iranian-American boy in Houston (Adam Echahly) who is a descendant of the family who takes it upon himself to "keep" and transmit the story. The title character (Bruno Lastra) is presented in an admirable if a bit sycophantic light, as is his love story with Darya (Marie Espinosa), to whom he composed most of his most famous love poems. The scenes (set in Uzbekistan, with period jaunts elsewhere) are ably filmed and mostly elegant, although the level of the actors' engagement doesn't rise above a slow simmer most of the times. The principal conflict is between Khayyam and lifelong friend Hassan (Christopher Simpson), which Mashayekh hopes to make emblematic of a host of larger conflicts - between science and religion, between universalism and sectarianism, between worldliness and Islamic separatism. It succeeds only in pieces. The editing is also a bit spotty, and at certain points I felt that too much of the story had been cut.

The film is one of those that serves a valuable public function; informing the movie-going world about Khayyam's legacy and the larger history of Islamic science and mathematics is a meaningful one, and I saw a host of Iranian-American families at the screening taking part in their cultural heritage. It doesn't win on purely cinematic terms, but it's an engaging and wholly good-hearted exercise regardless.

I only happened upon the website for this film (http://greatomar.com/) a couple of weeks ago (May 2006), purely by coincidence. Having not heard a thing about the film here in Australia, I was curious as to how good it could be. Checked the trailer and it looked authentic, ordered the DVD from the site, and having just watched it I can honestly say it is inspirational.

Without a doubt there is no better time for Persians and non-Persians alike from around the world to actually come to grips with just how rich and varied 2,500+ years of Persian history has been. And what better way than to watch a film which has so obviously been made out of the motive to educate, entertain and inspire.

If the movie does have a flaw, it's that the main characters seems to grow too quickly into their legendary statuses. However this is clearly due to time/financial constraints, perhaps also with a clear eye to the restlessness of modern audiences. The location scenery is both beautiful and authentic, the costumes and acting are more than passable - Omar (Bruno Lastra) in particular does a tremendous job, and most critical of all, the essence of the story is encapsulated perfectly.

My deepest thanks to Mr. Mashayekh for making this wonderful film, and again I encourage you all to see it for yourselves. I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

Cheers, Koroush Ghazi

Good film, but left me feeling unsatiated. One main criticism: NOT A SINGLE VERSE OF KHAYYAM'S POETRY READ OUT IN THE NATIVE PERSIAN LANGUAGE!!! It would not have cost a single penny and would have given so much more weight to the character of Khayyam. Other more minor criticisms: the dialogue was very elementary and the depth of the characters wasn't allowed to be fully developed (perhaps constrained due to 90 min. length of the film)... I didn't feel the depth of the characters, particularly, Khayyam's character. This man was a genius, but came across as a very simple man, at times babbling words in English (again, Fitzgerald's version of the more authentic and melodious Persian original) that wouldn't make much sense to the average viewer. The reason no Persian verse was spoken in this movie may have been because Khayyam was played by a non-Persian, Bruno (though he may be multilingual and talented), who probably hasn't ever read Khayyam in its original form (conjecture on my part). Why subtitle the characters living in U.S. (the Iranian-Americans) and not subtitle Khayyam who never spoke a word of English in his life?? I felt this really detracted from the character of Khayyam and his story. The best actor in the film, really, was Redgrave. I don't think the others carried the weight of those they were trying to emulate, particularly, Khayyam and Malek Shah. Overall, though, the movie is not bad. I think for this being his first film, Mashayekh deserves a good acknowledgment! He is obviously quite talented and I hope to see more films from him. In this film, though, in trying to cover too much and such an important subject (the Legend of Omar Khayyam), and trying to anglicize the project too much for a western audience (perhaps due to financial restrictions), that, in the end, Mashayekh perhaps lost what he was trying to "Keep" in the first place.