Children of Heaven
A boy who loses a pair of shoes of his sister, struggles to keep her happy in midst of their family poverty and tries finds a way to give back his sister what he lost initially.
Director:
Majid Majidi
Cast:
Amir Farrokh Hashemian as Ali
Bahare Seddiqi as Zahra
Reza Naji as Karim (Ali’s Father)
Fereshte Sarabandi as Ali’s Mother
Dariush Mokhtari as Ali’s teacher
Nafise Jafar- Mohammadi as Roya
Mohammed- Hasan Hosseinian as Roya’s father
Children of Heaven
“Majid Majidi”
The first time I heard this name was many years back, when a movie-loving friend of mine posted a review on facebook on “Children of heaven”. Since then this movie was on my list, but very recently only I watched it.
Set in the Iranian capital of Tehran, this story revolves around the life of two siblings Ali & Zahra who lives with their parents in a rented room in a poor neighborhood of south Tehran. Ali’s parents does odd jobs and struggles for a living. The family’s condition is so poor that they struggle financially a lot. In the beginning of the movie we can see the land lord scolds Ali’s mother since their rent is pending for 5 months and the grocery owner say’s that they owe him money from the previous purchases.
The story takes a turn when Ali accidently loses his sisters pair of shoes while returning home after getting it repaired from the toddler.
Ali explaining to Zahra sadly that he lost her shoes.
The innocent looks of both the kids gives a huge emotional impact.
Zahra is sad that she does not have any other shoes to wear for school and Ali is aware his family cannot afford a new pair of shoes due to their financial situation and he fears that his father might punish him for the mistake he made. The siblings then come up with an idea to cope up with the situation, without letting their parents know that the shoes is lost.
Since both of them have different school timings, Ali decides to share his sneakers with his sister. In the morning Zahra will wear Ali’s sneakers to school and then must leave school immediately in the afternoon to give back the sneakers to Ali whose school starts in the afternoon. But the whole thing is not an easy task.
Here you can see Ali running towards his school after collecting the sneakers from zarah. I really loved the camera frame here, with Ali running through a narrow path and zarah watching from behind being very helpless. To bring out an atmosphere of poverty, throughout the film majidi framed so many shots like this highlighting narrow passageways, small drainage canals, unpainted brick walls etc…
Here is another scene where the sneakers fall into a drainage canal on the street while zarah is on her way back to meet Ali and give back the sneakers. (Zarah struggles to get it back and later on another man from street helps her in retrieving the sneakers from the canal)
But their plan of exchanging sneakers did not work out very well as Ali reaches school late every day and is often noticed by the school head master, whom initially gives Ali warnings for all the excuses he gives. But one day the headmaster gets really angry with Ali for being late at school.
Here Ali is trying to convince the headmaster on why he is late, but headmaster asks him to go back home and bring his father back to school. While watching this scene you can feel the pain in Ali’s heart.
But Ali is given an excuse again since his class teacher witness the whole scenario and informs the headmaster to give Ali a chance. Ali is really good in his studies so his class teacher likes him very much. At one point in the movie Ali even receives a pen from his teacher as a gift for the good marks he scored for the class test. Ali in turn gives this pen to his sister Zarah to make her happy. These kind of good gestures shows Ali’s deep love and care for zarah.
Majidi again takes the viewers to even more emotional heights when zarah discovers that her missing shoes is worn by one of the girls (Roya) of her school. Zarah informs this to Ali and both of them spies on the Roya near her home. Eventually they come to know that Roya’s father is a blind man and they are living in even worse condition than their own family. Realizing this, they drop the plan of getting back the shoes from Roya. This really highlights the good will and kindness of both Ali and Zarah taught by their parents, which is evident from a scene initially in the movie where we can see Karim (Father to Ali and Zarah) explaining to them on why they shouldn’t use a packet of sugar given to him with trust.
The main thing that I really liked about this movie is the innocence of the kids shown in various circumstances. There is an incident when Ali and Karim Travels to North of Tehran to a rich neighborhood in search of jobs and communicates with the house owners through intercom at the gates. Karim due to stress and tension is not able to talk effectively but innocent Ali talks through the intercom, befriends a small kid of the house and soon they land for a gardening job.
This particular scene majidi beautifully potrays the innocent minds of small children. Without the difference of being rich or poor the boys enjoy a great time playing together, while karim does the gardening works.
Karim is paid more money, more than for the actual work he paid. Initially Karim refuses this money and demands only the money he deserved, but the house owner says Karim has done a very good job and gives him the money. Ali and Karim get very happy. Ali then requests Karim to buy a new pair of shoes to Zarah (without informing that her shoes are lost). Karim replies he will buy for both Ali and Zarah.
But to their misfortune, on their way back home Karim loses control of their bicycle and crashes on the street suffering from minor injuries and damages to the bicycle. A portion of money thus earned is used by Karim to buy medicines and to repair the damaged bicycle. This really shatters the mind of young Ali.
Finally another opportunity arises when it is announced in Ali’s school that a racing competition is conducted for the kids of Ali’s age and the third price of which is a pair of brand new sneakers.
Ali tells this to Zarah and promises that he would win third place in the race and give her the sneakers.
The outcome of the race is what again I liked about the way majidi narrated this story. Instead of winning third place, Ali lands up first in the race representing his school.
Few instances from the race
The whole crowd cheers, the head master who is present at the venue is so happy for Ali.
But Ali is sad since he expected to finish race for the third place so that he can win the sneakers for his sister. Ali cries while receiving the award, not out of happiness but because he lost the sneakers. This again proves the pure love of Ali to his sister. He does not care of being first in the race, all that was in his mind was the promise he made to Zarah. (This scene made me very sad)
The end of the film shows Ali taking off his now completely worn out and ruined sneakers and soaking his blistered feet in the housing compound goldfish pond. Now, finally he and his sister don’t even have one pair of shoes.
I really don’t know how to express my feelings at the end of the movie. At one end Ali has failed to get the sneakers and he himself sees as a failure. On the other hand , to give a feeling of hope, just after the race event majidi shows a scene where Karim buys shoes for both Ali & Zahra. But it is never shown in the movie that the kids are receiving these shoes from Karim.
Conclusion
The entire film is shown us through the eyes of the child leads Amir Farrokh Hashemian who plays Ali & Bahare Seddiqi who plays Zahra. They express feelings of fears, expectations and concerns throughout the movie and as an audience, I myself compared those feelings with lot of childhood incidents of my own. Trying to hide things from parents and teachers due to the fear of punishment.
“Children of Heaven” is my first experience of an Iranian movie and the real life performances of all actors and the real dramatic experience of children in an urban setting is what makes this movie special. The movie came out in 1997 and through one of the articles online I came to know that majid majidi really struggled a lot during the shoot of this film. The film was on a low budget, there were lot of government constraints in Iran when shooting a movie at that point in time. The government can either ban or suggest changes to the movie based on screenings.
Majidi employed hidden cameras at various locations to get even natural performances not only from the actors but also to get a more realistic image of surrounding areas as well.
Even with all such difficulty, majidi produced a fine piece of art. This movie was a turning point to majidi and the Iranian Film industry. Children of the heaven gained lot of international attention and was shown on various international film festivals. It was first Iranian movie nominated for the academy award for the best foreign language film in 1998.
For me “Children of heaven” is one of the best children movies I have seen so far.
Author: Aromal Anil
