Children of Heaven- Innocent emotions in motion
A month back my friend asked me to join him for a movie at his place. It was an Iranian movie by a director unknown to me. Frankly speaking I am not a big fan of Irani movies. With lots of cajoling and pushing I sat down in his TV room to watch this flick called Children of Heaven.
The next 80 minutes completely blew me off. It was my privilege to spend the next 80 minutes watching a director bring out one of the best in cinema the world has even seen. The movie is in Farsi language and one reads to the subtitles to understand it. The whole movie must have been made on shoe string budget but it can put to shame most of the Bollywood and Hollywood million dollar budget stupid flicks that are neither entertaining nor good value for your money.
Children on Heaven (Bacheha Ye Aseman in Farsi) starts with Ali Mondegar (played by young Amir Hashemian) getting his younger sister Zahra (Bahare Siddiqi) shoe mended at the cobbler. On the way back he pops into a vegetables shop, leaving the shoe bag outside. Unknown to him a garbage collector picks up the bag. He goes back home to his sister and informs her of the misfortune. But asks her not to tell their parents. He understands that being poor their father does not have money to buy a new pair and would need to borrow money for it. Till such time they will make use of Ali’s sneakers. Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and Ali will use them for his school on her return.
This is the basic premise of the whole movie and what follows is just fantastic. You get totally drawn into the whole drama and the close to life resemblance of the situations. Your heart goes out to the siblings when they have verbal arguments and adore them when they support each other. The film has less dialogue and one really does not need to keep reading the subs after understanding the basic issue of lost shoes. Both the children have shown depth in their characters; their smiles, their eyes, the frowns and body language are in synch with the situations that are forced upon them due to the loss. The supporting cast is just as good but don’t have much say in the movie.
The film promotes team work, responsibility, love, trust, sense on honour, politeness, respect for elders, family values and many aspects of life. The story has universal appeal; you can base it anywhere in the world, be it Mumbai or Manila. More than the story it’s the director (Majid Majidi) who should be given credit for showcasing it in a very simple and easy to understand format. Camera works is very simple, no crazy angles here. Music is bare and on need base only. Dialogues are sparse and light. The movie is humorous as well as soul searching. Majidi has ensured that audience are not subjected to heavy douse of emotional outcry that would have been the norm if it were made in Bollywood.
As final credits start rolling in I was left thinking about the movie and how all the situations are related to real life. There was a complete silence between me and my friend and it took good ten minutes to break it. All that while I was thinking about how the sibling dealt with the situation and how I have scream and throw fits when I an under situations that are not to my liking. I have not written any post in a long time but this movie has compelled me to add my two bits and make more of you aware about it.
I recommend all to watch this flick; especially parents should do it with their children. I assure you those will be some of the best 80 minutes of your lives.
Watch out for some of the outstanding scenes. My personal favourites are
1. Exchange of notes by the sibling
2. Zahra being ashamed wearing Ali’s large and dirty sneakers to school
3. Zahra’s facial expression when se finds her shoe being worn by a school mate
4. The sibling going to the other girls house to get the shows but coming back empty handed as they find how poor and helpless the girls father is
5. Zahra’s being upset when she finds out that the other girls mother has thrown her old shoes
6. Ali giving his best to come third in the race as the prize is pair of sneakers for that position
I have become huge fan of Majid Majidi and can’t wait to watch his other movies. May write about them in my next post.
Tags: Iran Cinema, Majid Majidi, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Look forward to watch it if I get a chance.
btw priyadarshan is re making the film in hindi for percept.
children of heaven is a masterpiece!
I heard that Majid Majidi is making a film for UTV…..and I have been a big fan of him and other movies like The Willow Tree, Baran are truly masterpieces made by this Iranian director….my favorite scenes in this movie are exchange of notes by scribbling described above and the despair the little one shows when her shoe falls of in the gutter..this is the best movie of human emotions after Life is Beautiful for me…dying to see what Majid Majidi offers to Indian audience…….way to go UTV…..
Agree — It’s one of the simple and best movies I have ever seen…..and it stays with u forever….”padre” too is a good one —Long live Majidi!!!
Hi Muzzy!
I fully agree. Majid Majidi is a true master and my favourite of his is “Colour of Paradise” (Rang-e khoda)!
Nice movie, indeed! I watched it sometime last week when they showed it on Star Movies…
watched last year…excellent film…
& I heard the hindi remake will star the TZP kid…
But one should definitely go for the original if available…
There’s a hindi remake already… scene to scene copy… very badly done… I saw it on utv movies a few months back.
Was upset beyond imagination… i was too angry to even remember the name…
.
they remade ‘ a short story about love’ too… but that was atleast okayish… the one i am talking about is a worse remake than even Aag.
Well yes Star Movies showed it right after the Oscar awards.its a brilliant movie- the kids have done a wonderful job.The race has been so well shot in the climax, it’s an amazing movie.Priyan’s version has Darsheel Safary & is called Bum Bum Bole.
Sameer- what’s the name of the hindi remake?are you sure its not a hindi dubbed version of the Iranian movie?
i watched it last year or so… then invited a group of friends to see the film… my mom also enjoyed the film despite the language barrier..
that’s a good cinema…
i’ve given it to countless people..
and while watching TZP, i felt if it had inspired them…
there are so many wonderful scenes in the movie like when the boy helps his father to find work, the classroom scene, my mom liked the girl making tea for her father, the headmaster…
this is a brilliant film.. one in top 100 films of all time
Sameer: I just happen to see the movie on UTV and suddenly i realised by watching a single frame of the movie that its a pathetic remake of Children of Haven (thats the power of Majid Majidi) and yes you are right the Hindi remake you are talking about is not only the worst remakes ever but also one of the worst movie’s ever made.
Sethu: the movie Sameer talking about is
Salaam Bacche (2006)
Directed by Pratima V Kulkarni, Khalid Y Batliwala
(Pratima V Kulkarni is the same lady who acted in Taare Zameen par as Darsheel principal of his previous school)
Funny Trivia: Naved Jaffrey of Boogie Woogie Fame plays the role of the person who helps the little girl to retrieve the shoe from the gutter.(how funny this can get)
and his partner from Boogie Woogie Ravi Bhel plays the coach who trains the little boy to win the race.
superb film revolving around human emotions. I watched it last year on star movies and was lost for some time after watching it. The scene where children exchange notes is i think we see in our homes in India also… where father is angry or something else and we siblings exchange notes to communicate. I went in my childhood days after watching it. The way siblings cooperate with each other for shoes was quite touchy.. Just look in the eyes of children in film..they say every thing.. great movie…
Talking about Iranian movies.. I saw a movie called ‘The Mirror’ ( ‘Ayenah’ in Pharsi, 1997 make ) on UTV world movie some weeks back.
I have watched ‘Children of Heaven’ and completely admire the movie. Ayenah also starts with a similar impression.Totally unpredictable, I was taken aback half way between the movie when it takes a complete U-turn and turns out to be real life story rather than reel life.
I have watched ‘Children of Heaven’ and completely admire the movie. Ayenah also starts with a similar impression.Totally unpredictable
I was taken aback half way between the movie when it takes a complete U-turn and turns out to be real life story rather than reel life.I googled about the movie the next day but coudn’t find much except that it did went to some of the film festivals that year. I don’t remember the name of the director, but the little girl’s name playing the lead is Mina (you’ll come to know how i remember the girl’s name after you watch the movie ;) )
sorry for posting comments in parts.. i am not able to post the comments is one go somehow !!!
movie i loved and still in love,will always be in love with….it shows we dont need big budgets to make big movies. beauty of life lies in its simplicity…