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Department of Visual Communication

Faculty of Science and Humanities
SRM Institute of Science and Technology
NME – 2020
FILM APPRECIATION

Name Karthik Raja

Register Number RA1932202010013
Department M.COM- 2nd year

CHILDREN OF HEAVEN
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FILM INFORMATION CAST &CREW

Original Title &English Title

“Children of Heaven”
Language: Persian
Initial Release: February, 1997 at the Tehran Fajr Film

Main Cast

Actor/Actress Role
Amir Farrokh Hashemian Ali
Bahare Seddiqi Zahra
Reza Naji Father
Fereshte Sarabandi Mother
Dariush Mokhtari Ali's teacher
Nafise Jafar Mohammadi Roya
Mohammed-Hasan Hosseinian Roya's father
Mohammed-Hossein Shahidi Alireza
Kazem Asqarpoor Grandfather
Christopher Maleki Salt seller

Director
Majid Majidi

Screen Writer
Majid Majidi

Composer (Music Score)

Keivan Jahanshahi

Cinematographer
Parviz Malekzaade

Editor
Hassan Hassandoost

Genre: Family Drama

SYNOPSIS

Children of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian family drama film written and directed by Majid
Majidi. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes. It was
nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.
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FILM REVIEW
I thought it exceptional. In most part because of the two main child leads who live
their parts. Impossible not to fall in love with them both. Every moment from silent brotherly
tears to little arms pumping as she runs in oversize shoes to the simplicity of little feet
shuffling behind others to hide those ragged shared shoes. The photography angles are
wonderful and low, the sound unnoticeable and so great. Everything - one of the great films.

OPENING CREDITS
The story of the film begins with about 9 years old Ali running errands for his family,
starting at a cobbler who repairs the pink shoes of his little sister Zahra. When he goes to get
some potatoes, he leaves Zahra’s repaired shoes outside where they get mistaken for garbage
and taken away by a homeless man.
Ali goes home after failed attempts to find the shoes, we see the tremendous guilt he
carries over losing his sister’s shoes, and it becomes clear that their relation is one based on
love. It sets a precedent for the rest of the film, for in a similar act of love; they decide to
keep their problem a secret from their parents as they worry their father can’t afford a new
pair of shoes and they don’t want to burden their mother, who is struggling with an illness,
with any more stress. At that night, while the siblings were doing their homework, they come
up with a solution; since they don’t go to school at the same time, where in Iran there is a
school time for boys and another time for girls to avoid gender mixing, so Zahra will wear
Ali’s converse sneakers in the morning and then give them back to him as he goes to school
in the afternoon.

PLOT

The film starts with Ali fetching his little sister Zahra's pink shoes after a cobbler has
repaired them. He leaves them unattended to buy some potatoes. While he is pre-occupied, a
homeless man picks up the shoes, hidden in a bag, thinking it was garbage and takes them
away. Frantic to find them, the young boy, thinking the shoes fell behind the crates, knocks
over plates of vegetables and is chased away by the grocer.

Ali's family lives in a poor South Tehran neighbourhood, and are having financial
trouble, so he fears to tell his parents about the mishap. The landlord argues with Ali's mother
because she is five months behind on the rent, and the grocer has not been paid in a while
either. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and begs her not to tell their mother; she agrees. That
night, Ali's father scolds him for not helping his ill mother when she asked. While the siblings
were doing their homework, they passed notes to each other discussing what to do. They
devise a scheme to share Ali's Converse sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the
morning and return them to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. Ali does well on
a test and his teacher awards him a gold-colored pen with the others in his class that got good
grades; he gives it to Zahra to partially make up for losing her shoes. However, the
uncomfortable arrangement between him and his sister leads to Ali being late three times in a
row, no matter how hard he runs; the first time the principal ignores him, the second time he
gives him a warning, the third time he tells Ali to leave and return with his father who is at
work trying to make money. Ali's teacher, noticing Ali's tears, persuades the principal that Ali
is at the top of his class and to give the boy one more chance and let him back into class.

One day, Zahra notices her missing pink shoes on another student, Roya's, feet. After
class, Zahra secretly follows Roya home. She later brings Ali with her for a confrontation, but
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from hiding, they discover that Roya's father is blind, so they decide to leave. When Roya
does well in her studies, her father buys her new violet shoes and throws away Zahra's. Zahra
is dismayed when she finds out from her new friend.

Ali's father, anxious to earn more money, borrows some gardening equipment and
heads off with Ali to the rich suburbs of North Tehran to find some gardening work. They try
many places without success, though Ali proves to be a great help to his tongue-tied father.
Finally, they come upon a mansion in which a six-year-old boy named Alireza lives under the
care of his grandfather. While Ali plays with Alireza, his father works. When he is finished,
Ali's father is surprised and elated by how generous the grandfather is. On the way home, Ali
mentions in passing that Zahra could use a new pair of shoes; his father says that new shoes
for his children is a good idea, however, their elation is short lived as their bicycle's brakes
fail and the father is injured in the resulting crash.

Finally, Ali learns of a high-profile children's 4 kilometer footrace involving many

schools; the third prize is one week at a vacation camp and a pair of sneakers. Ali sees this as
his chance to earn a new pair of shoes for Zahra. To his bitter disappointment, in a hard-
fought dash to the finish, he accidentally places first instead. Ali returns home where Zahra is
waiting for him. However, before he can reveal to his sister his disappointment in his
placement in the race, she is called away by their mother. In a separate scene, there is a quick
shot of the children's father's bicycle as he's riding home, showing a pair of white and a pair of
pink shoes among his purchases. In the final shot, Ali is dejected as his sneakers are torn from
the race—he is then shown dipping his bare blistered feet in a pool.

Some versions include an epilogue revealing that Ali eventually achieves success in a
racing career.

KEY SCENES
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