Iran: Children of Heaven (1995)

Children of Heaven was written and directed by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

The characters in this story are ZAHRA and  ALI. The story begins when Ali loses his sister's shoes after picking them up from being repaired. Right from the very first scenes, the audience is able to determine that Ail and his family are very poor. He gets back home to his very ill mother and his young sister who has been waiting anxiously for him to bring back her shoes. To her surprise, Ail tells her that he had lost them and asks her to please don’t tell their parents. Through the interaction between the children, it is able to determine that their father would have gotten very upset with them if he found out what had happened.

Zahra agrees to keep the secret and the kids realize that there is not another solution than for her to wear Ali's shoes to school in the morning and given them back to Ail when he has to go to school later in the day. This arrangement portrays the extreme of poverty of their family. They just had one pair of old and dirty shoes for each of the children and now there was just one.  

Zahra does not really like the idea, but her heart would let her uncover his brother and get him in trouble. 

The plot of the story takes place around this situation. The children struggle to make the arrangement work, but it is definitely not an easy task. Zahra studied in the morning and had to literarily run in order to be able to give her brother the shoes so that he can then run to his school. As it is easy to imaging, the situation didn’t really worked that successfully. Ali was late to class most of the days and he gets in trouble with the principal of the school. Thankfully, he was known to be a very good and responsible student and he gets the opportunity of a second chance.

The story keeps developing around the challenges of the children and their family to survive under economical struggle and the effort of the children to deal with the shoes situation. The audience is touched by the love that these children show for each other.

The story takes a turn when Ali realizes that there is a running contest where one of the awards includes a pair of brand new shoes. He commits himself to get into the race and win those shoes for his sister. The love and commitment to making his sister happy is evident and heartwarming.

The themes that can be the highlight of the film Children of Heaven are: The real love and solidarity between siblings, the struggle between social classes, and the little amount of  communication there is between parents and children in some cultures. The movie clearly portrays how because of the fear of a scolding the children prefer to team up and remain silent. You can also see that women have to keep some respect and obey the men in what they decide.

Beyond that, the film reflects the desire to succeed doesn’t necessarily destroys every man’s values. The father of the children let’s see that he is a man with values and with honesty. He helps his community even though  he could be using that time to finding a job, he is an example for his children.

Personally, I loved the movie. It touched my heart in so many different ways. It is a movie that makes you smile, laugh, cry, worry and smile again. It shows you the real meaning of love; it shows you what really matters in life. A wonderful movie, without a doubt.