Children Of Heaven
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Movie Reviews of Children Of Heaven
Movie Review: Prized Possessions
Summary: 5 Stars
Iran's little gem, 'Kingdom of Heaven' is delightful. Combining the celebrated innocence of childhood with a story that shares their culture, the film doesn't miss. It all starts when a nine-year-old boy, Ali, loses his sister's (Zahra's) shoes he's picked up from the cobbler when he stops at the market to pick up groceries. Watching the film, I couldn't help but think of all we take for granted in the affluent West.
We begin the film with their neighbors arguing over water use for showering and washing clothes. Knowing he's going to get it from a father who's five months behind in the rent, Ali does everything conceivable to conceal their loss. Daily Ali and Zhaki exchange his sneakers for his sandals in a race against time. (He has to sprint to school after her session ends.) All the running gets Ali in trouble with the principal who won't tolerate tardy students, but it also gives him an opportunity: He gets a chance to enter a race where third prize is a pair of new sneakers.
Deceptively simple as a plot, the character and story development are special enough to create a magnetic interest. With beautiful sequences that are touching and brilliant in their simplicity, 'Children of Heaven' spreads the joyful effervescence of childhood as a special import!
Movie Review: What a lovely film! Worth watching for the faces alone...
Summary: 5 Stars
This Iranian film tells a simple story of a brother (Ali) and sister Zahra (he's 9, she's younger) who live in a particularly poor family -- the father serves tea for a living and the mother has been sick, which could explain why they're five months behind in the rent. Ali takes his sister's shoes to be mended but loses them on the way home in a "could happen to anyone" accident. They are his sister's only shoes and there's no money to buy more -- and they fear the father's wrath. They end up sharing the boy's shoes -- which apparently works because the school building is shared by boys and girls but not at the same time. Still, there's a lot of running involved in making the switch.
What is striking is the integrity of everyone in this movie, despite their poverty. A six-year-old finds a pen and returns it. The father wouldn't think of taking something that wasn't his, however tiny. And there's much kindness in this movie, showing that poverty doesn't need to make people greedy and cruel -- money seems to do that.
I highly recommend this movie. Although it's subtitled, it's definitely a family film and could provide a good basis for a discussion of compassion and honesty. But it's also a very charming film for people of all ages.
Movie Review: Simply awesome....
Summary: 5 Stars
This is quite an amazing film, one that leaves an indelible impression on anyone who has seen it. On paper, it sounds like a Lifetime TV movie. A boy loses his sister's shoes, and does everything he can to get them back (or get her a new pair). But Majid Majidi works wonders here, and makes the story not only believable, but moving, poetic, and it has one of the biggest surprise endings that I think I've ever seen. It comes totally out of left field, and you're left wondering with all the ironies the ending contains. The performances here are naturalistic and astonishingly good, especially those by the children playing the leads. Majidi's direction is solid and he really gives this film (and his other films like his masterpiece Baran) a beautiful visual style all its own. Majidi is Iran's most underrated filmmaker. Kiarostami is better known, but Majidi's films have a little more heart than Kiarostami's, and Majidi might actually be the better filmmaker. I hope no Hollywood studio remakes this masterpiece, as it's one of the most beguiling, surprising films ever made about children. It's really stunning.Movie Review: Warm, sweet, and honest
Summary: 5 Stars
Finding a film that achieves warmth, sweetness, tenderness, and child-like wonder while eschewing nostalgia, cuteness, and other heart-tugging manipulations is a rare treat. I can't think of a movie that walks this thin line better than The Children of Heaven. Losing a pair of shoes is the parti for a gentle and humorous adventure in which siblings act out of uncomplicated love for each other. Seeing them running through the streets of Tehran I felt privvy to a view of children that I might get if I were invisible, so spontaneous is their acting. I'm left supposing that director Majidi set the scenes and waited patiently for the kids to just PLAY. The pacing is natural and unhurried, the storyline is believable but tinted with a slight forgivable haze of allegory, and all is suffused with a heavenly sense of the lightness of being a child. Moments of adult anxiety enter here and there, and are central to the broad view of the plot, but mostly the movie is a series of intimate vignettes that culminate in a surprisingly tense footrace.
I enthusiastically recommend this for the whole family.
Movie Review: Charming
Summary: 5 Stars
As the story opens, young Ali is picking up his sister's shoes from the repair shop. On the way home, the shoes are inadvertently lost and Ali must tell his little sister Zahra they are gone. The family has no money for new shoes and Ali fears they will both be beaten, so they don't tell their parents but come up with a plan: Zahra will wear Ali's shoes to school in the morning and he will wear them in the afternoon.
This Iranian film is absolutely charming. We see the world through the children's eyes...the harsh realities of their poverty and the contrasting luxury Ali sees when he helps his father as a gardener. Ali risks serious consequences by sticking with the plan and Zahra's heart longs for the beautiful shoes of her classmates. The children who play the leads are natural actors, completely believable and sympathetic; sadly, this was their only movie.
I couldn't wait to see what would happen next and the long-distance race at the end is really exciting. Highly recommended for the whole family, but keep the tissues handy. (In Persian with English subtitles.)