I watched 'Children of Heaven' when it first came out and the faces of Ali and Zahra have stayed with me ever since.
What I loved most was seeing their expressions of grief and sadness transform into ones of pleasure and delight. How many times the two of them quietly stared into each others’ pained eyes, seeming to reassess each other, to dig deep into their long held closeness and trust and suddenly the sun would burst forth again from their reassured faces. And each time I waited for that light, for their joy and sense of peace to return, and for mine to return as well.
I think my favorite part was when Ali and his dad drive their bike to the city looking for work. Like much of life, it was filled with a rich mixture of pathos and comedy .
Watching them go through their day I remembered the time when my partner and I , unable to pay our bills, decided to go to the wealthiest neighborhood we knew of and hang our flyers (for house painting) on their door knobs. I remember how humbling it felt walking from one sprawling lawn to another keeping our heads held high though something inside both of us was melting down. My mantra as I stood at each door was, “there will always be those that have more than us, there will always be those that have less.” (Of course, the thought that we were lucky to have comfortable shoes to be walking in while looking for work did not occur to us. The concept of ‘having’ and ‘not having’ are relative. Once we obtain the basic essentials it becomes a matter of perception.)
I remembered this day as Ali and his dad went from house to house, hot and tired and yet filled with hope I wonder where Ali and Zahra are now? Upon what ground do their shoes walk? Does the sun still pour from their faces? Do they still have that hope? Do I?
As long as people keep making films such as this, and as long as there are still fish that nibble at our tired feet, I’d have to say I do.
April 11, 2008
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19 comments:
What a delightful film this was! We watched both Children of Heaven and Kitchen Stories this weekend with some friends who were staying over. They had been to Iran and were enjoying seeing parts of it again. Two great choices, thanks so much! By the way, the photographs of the money are really good. Quite an unusual set, were they taken for a particular reason? Were they used in some sort of advertisements?
This movie is one of the sweetest ones I've seen since childhood. Children in a poor but loving family who try to solve their own problems without interference from abusive or stupid adults. A brother and sister who love each other and show it in their actions. People who help others despite their own grinding poverty. (Sure, the kids were a bit too sweet at points, but it never got out of hand.)
I loved seeing the father try to be a big man to his son ("listen and learn"), but ending up needing the son's help in getting work. I liked seeing the father be man enough to take the lesson from his son.
Thanks for bringing this movie to my attention Lee.
It's good to be back, sorry I missed joining in the last discussion.
I agree with Breather,
it was great to see a story where the children find their own way, even within a loving and supportive family. They were not cloyingly sweet and precocious as kids are often portrayed.
Lee, I enjoyed your posting and was surprised and pleased at your sharing such a personal experience.
One of the things I like about this site is that your posts and so many of the comments approach the films from a much more personal perspective( as opposed to just reading staight reviews.)
I'll never take my footwear for granted again.......
LEM,MCOT,LLI.....
MaryJRay, i hear you, my Nikes never felt so good......
Hello Everyone. We have been reading these comments for the last two months and have enjoyed the website very much. We use the 'just watched' list to help us choose our next films from Netflix!
My husband and I read your post this week Lee and both of us were curious as to how your 'business trip' to the wealthy neighborhood panned out for you and your partner. If you would feel ok sharing , we would love to know what happened. Thanks again for the great website. Sarah and Jim.
Like Kate&Jim I thought the $$$ shots were great. I too would be interested in any additional info you could give about why , when how you made these photographs. I also loved the Winter Wonderland series. It's not easy to get good snow shots, these are pretty impressive. My son goes to school in Boston and I forwarded them to him and suggested he head over to the De Cordova Museum . I recognized some of the sculptures! I especially liked the one with the silver car tire. Was that a sculpture or was it taken somewhere else? Thanks Lee.
p.s. Are you shooting digital or do you still use film?
Not much to add to what has already been well said. A very sweet movie, and such a relief to watch a film in which the children are not only played by children, but act like them too. How unlike the cynical, foul mouthed, self -centered midgets Hollywood treats us to. Imagine little Zahra a few years down the road on MTV's "My Super Sweet Sixteen." I also loved the fact that Children of Heaven incorporated real life terrors: getting into trouble at school, losing something of importance, and real life excitement: the footrace, instead of CGI monsters and superheroes. A truly wonderful children's movie, and of course your typical 8 year old may not notice, or at any rate understand, the significance of the fact that every single little girl is forced to wear exactly the same outfit, and that all the women in the film are entirely covered but for a few inches of their face, or that only men attend the Temple meetings.
I want to welcome the newcomers from both this post and the last one:
Mike
'Jeeves'
'Wooster'
MaryJray
Sarah
J.I.T.
Photoluver
To: David, Breather,Oldman ,Filmluver,and Kate&Jim I enjoyed your comments as always!
Thankyou all for such great input.
Wow, so many interesting questions and provocative statements to respond to!
I too have become very aware of just how comfy my feet are since watching the film..(and how MANY pairs of shoes I have...).
Starting with the inquirys regarding the photography. Photoluver, most of what I have shown so far on the site was shot in film. I am slowly but surely moving toward digital as it simply is no longer affordable to stick with film. The $$$ shots in the current slideshow are part of a series of one hundred slides that were incorporated into a CDROM in the early 90's. A company called Corel in Canada called me saying they had seen some of my work and would I be interested in shooting a project for them 'on spec' (ie if they use it I get paid, if they don't I don't). The subject was 'Money from around the World'.
I was told to simply be as creative as possible and give them my interperatation of money, in all its forms and aspects. I had two weeks to come up with it. The pay and exposure would be great so I decided to go for it. I 'rented' the money itself from the bank, and brainstormed the hell out of the subject and eventually came up with about 150 slides. Luckily they loved them and the CD was purchaced and produced. Truly one of the most challenging and fun projects I have ever worked on.
As to the 'business trip' into the rich suburbs searching for painting jobs with my partner: We hung at least 600 of what we considered pretty cool hangtags advertising our painting business over a three day period. Results were NADA. We also tried MANY other methods of saving this previously viable business. All to no avail. The bottom line is that over the last decade most of the skilled labor jobs involving landscaping, construction , painting and the like have been ( and I look for ways to say this without being politically incorrect but can't)) lost to immigrants, both legal and otherwise, who are willing to work for SIGNIFICANTLY lower wages. For the most part (though there are of course exceptions) the only folks left making a living in these particular fields are the company owners who hire the workers.
Oldman, as to the last and very true sentence in your posting I have a lot to say about that and will respond in a separate comment later.
CHARMING. SO SAD TO KNOW THAT MOST OF THE WORLD POPULATION IS SO ABJECTLY POOR BUT THE RESILIENCE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT TO SURVIVE AND
ENJOY NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE
Photoluver, forgot to answer your question about the silver tire.. This was in fact taken at the De Cordova. It is a fairly new outdoor installation of a beautiful old silver car with a running video in the windows. Actually, I didn't quite 'get it'. Perhaps your son could give me his interpretation if it's still there?
Bitsie, I love how you always manage to sum up an entire film in just a few poignant and very apt sentences. Much appreciated.
Oldman, David and I were discussing the last sentence in your post.
We felt very much like the 8 year olds who you mentioned would not notice these elements. During the film we were totally immersed in the plot and saw all the women and girls that were portrayed as individuals. (in spite of their school uniforms and that there were few women out on the streets in general..) We did notice that the incredibly varied footwear the girls in the playground were wearing was similar to how girls at a private American school might take the one area that they are allowed freedom in outside of their school uniforms and use it to the max. And as we both remember going to 'Shul' with our Jewish grandparents when we were very young and having the men and women separated completely even this even did not strike us DURING the film. One of the things we liked so much about this movie is that it managed to focus strictly on (as you stated so well,) the COMMON "real life terrors" that are UNIVERSAL to most children everywhere. Pretty much the opposite of the excellent movie 'Water' which was making a clear statement about the distinctively horrific plight of the Hindu windows, both children and women. I am glad that the the director of 'Children of Heaven' Majid Majidhi felt free to set aside the obvious polital/social issues and give us just a good old fashioned story set in his area of the world. And though the "significance" of the sociopolitacal facts are impossible to ignore we are grateful that during these magical two hours we were indeed able to....
Dear Lee and David,
“I read your recent comments with interest, and while I agree with much of what you have to say -- indeed, I thought I’d made it clear in my earlier posting that I too loved this film just as it is – ultimately I find myself a bit puzzled. Surely when you make a statement like, “I am glad that the the director of 'Children of Heaven' Majid Majidhi felt free to set aside the obvious political/social issues and give us just a good old fashioned story set in his area of the world,” you must at least acknowledge the fact that Majidhi was not free to do anything else! In a nation where any dissent whatever is brutally repressed and where the censorship situation is widely considered amongst the worst on the planet, Majidhi has no choice but to “set aside” “political/social issues, and give us just a good old fashioned story.” As someone who got his start in films as an actor working for the Islamic Propagation Organization, perhaps Majidhi personally has no interest in giving us anything more. Still, most “good old fashioned” stories I can recall – whether penned by the brothers Grimm, or dramatized in films like Sullivan’s Travels or It’s a Wonderful Life, at least acknowledge the presence of evil in the world. Again, I enjoyed this movie immensely, and have, in fact, added several more Majidhi titles to my Netflix Queue, however, a fairy tale without a wicked witch may be cute, charming, enjoyable, yet no matter how adorable the children it will never be great. And that, essentially, is the difference between this film and one like Life is Beautiful, which not coincidentally is the movie that beat out Children of Heaven for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1999.”
Thanks for the invitation. I'll add it to my Netflix que.
Way to go Oldman. Thanks for catching me out on the truly ABSURD use of the words 'freedom to' in this particular context. Surely I deserve a big fat kick in the butt for this one! More later..Lee
I am reading the last set of comments between Lee, David and Oldman and saying, "this is exactly what I meant when I said this site offers much more than 'straight reviews'! Hey Lee, sending you a great big kick in the butt!
Hello! Hope this finds everyone on the blog doing well and enjoying the spring weather!
Well, just woke up and first responded to an email from a friend and then watched Children of Heaven first thing this morning. My goodness, what a movie to wake up to.
I mention the email from my friend because it might possibly have something to touch on with oldman's comment about cultural viewpoints and societal restrictions in Iran. (Hi, Oldman! Hope your daughter is doing well! You have a talent for writing GREAT introductory guitar licks! Thank you for your posts and for your latest cd that Lee shared with me!) I'm about the most politically ignorant person ever, so this will be somewhat outside of my territory.
My friend lives in New York City and is very upset about the Sean Bell case (I'm not in a frame of mind to sum it up, but Google can provide the current media coverage.) She wrote me to ask how is it possible that life can be taken so easily, that she doesn't understand it, that she'll never understand it. I think that's what she was after.
Oldman, you write about women's oppression in another country; also about governmental censorship. Lee mentioned Water, the making of which film came up against its own set of escalated social pressures. I don't disagree with you that Majidi may have had no choice but to set aside any acknowledgement of the existence of what can be perceived as evil. I also don't disagree with Lee that it was nice that Majidi "felt free to set aside the obvious polital/social issues and give us just a good old fashioned story set in his area of the world."
The stuff I wrote my friend this morning stemmed partly from a book I randomly happen to be reading, Why Good People Do Bad Things, by James Hollis, about Jung's Shadow archetype, and partly from a lecture on Plotinus's definition of good and evil that I heard at church recently. It's still only 9:58am, so I'm probably going to munge this badly, but the Jungian Shadow stuff, it has something to do with conflicting things being able to coexist within the same person just by dint of the natural makeup of the human psyche as Jung understood it, warts and all. E.g., a militantly anti-gay senator who turns out to be gay himself. It has something to do with stuff naturally being able to live within the same person, but be viewed as conflicting/evil/hypocritical/non-self-consistent the minute it's view from an outside party. And what that means not just for people personally, but interpersonally, within a community, and within society and the world at large.
The stuff about Plotinus...hm...that was on the order of...if a human chooses to do one thing or another in the world, she can use her discriminatory faculty to distinguish between right and wrong, and choose to do right. (The question of what is right and what is wrong, that's another topic, I guess it must fall under ethics. But here it's the handwaving kind of general, you know, killing people is bad, helping other people is good.) But if the discriminatory faculty gets clouded or impaired, then the pleasure principle takes over, and then she decides what to do based on what feels good, or simply she just wants it. Why does she want it, well, no reason, she just wants it. And if she gets what she wants, then there's no problem, but if her desire is obstructed in some way, then that, says Plotinus (if I understood the lecture right, and that's a huge if), is the root of evil. The monk gave the example of oil. I want oil. I can't get oil. This can be the cause of great evil.
I'll be a fencesitter again and say that all these things can coexist. There can be oppression in Iran. Majidi can still feel free to tell a relatively nonpolitical story that portrays what life is like in his country. Whether he actually did feel feel or if he was confining his storytelling within strict parameters, I certainly couldn't guess. If I were in his position, I might not be able to guess either.
Likewise with the Sean Bell case, who actually can know what goes on in the head of a policeman in an exceptionally intense and completely tragic moment. I realize it's an artefact of the setup of the American legal system that it's assigned the duty of figuring out once and for all in some regimented way what in fact happened and how justice is to be handed out, but in cases like the one with Sean Bell, and such a crushingly tragic one at that, I wonder if the task is a ...what's it called...I wonder if it isn't an intractable problem. That has no chance of being addressed except wrong. For everyone involved. No matter what the outcome. That's way too simplistic a description of it. Can't even comment about it except wrong....
Um, so about societal oppression, I'm Japanese American. People have asked me every so often about the restricted role that women have in Japanese society. I can say yeah it sucks sometimes. I can also say that they probably don't suffer as much as an outside party looking in from the outside might imagine that they do. I think it has something to do with that Jungian Shadow thing about being observed. That's there's a lot going on, which an outside party can probably also guess at, but it's just not formulatable within the space of a normal verbal conversation. And that being on the inside, you're on the inside, you know. Yeah, it can suck, but it's also what life is. Then again, there are degrees.... It's one thing to be stuck serving tea to a demanding husband for the rest of your life. Most likely entirely another to live in one of the widow convents portrayed in Water....
As for acknowledging the presence of evil in the world as a factor in the greatness of a movie, I can sort of see your point with this one, although I guess it depends on your definition of evil, going back to Plotinus. Maybe a good definition of evil is that which causes suffering. And if evil is a desire based on the pleasure principle that is obstructed, then what's to distinguish a little girl's desire for shoes from whatever desire it is that oppresses masses of people. Except as a matter of degree. It's clear that Ali suffered a lot through the movie. It's clear Jahra did, too. I guess the evil in the movie was the human condition. To need stuff (shoes, rent, a nonslipped disc). To be obstructed in your ability to get it, and/or to question why it is you in fact need it in the first place. Not that Jahra could have done this, but I suppose if she were okay with walking in her slippers, there wouldn't have been a movie.
At any rate, I just wanted to let you know that you were read and provided much food for thought, oldman. I don't normally comment on political things, mostly because my head seems to be inclined to view things as a hazy cloud and not fall decisively on one side of an issue or another or a third side or a seventeenth. For which, many apologies for the muddled thoughts, what there was of them, such as they were.
Lee, I loved the fish at the very end!!! :-D If there were ever an ending made just for you. Like you, I also liked the parts where the kids could be okay in the world blowing bubbles while washing shoes and stuff. That it's possible to have moments of being okay even in the middle of stressful situations. The bubble scene was quite beautiful. :) :) :)
Kate&Jim, that was nice to hear your friends enjoyed seeing Iran again. I enjoyed the armchair visit myself. The gutter system was really neat (the scene where she lost a sneaker was a nailbiter for me). I think the only other parts of day to day Iranian life I've seen are through a couple films by Abbas Kiarostami (A Taste of Cherry and Ten, both really, really great...).
breather, filmluver, and oldman, I agree it was an uncommonly sensitive portrayal of children. maryjray, j.i.t. and Lee, I agree that I won't be looking at my shoes the same way today.
Thanks so much again, Lee!!!
Thank you Cherry for your comment! For anyone who is interested I thought it would be helpful to read some interviews with the director Majid Majidi. As Oldman so aptly states Majidi may have no choice but to censor HIMSELF in these interviews for obvious reasons. Check out the following links:
http://www.cinemajidi.com/interviews/EU_%20english.html
http://www.rossanthony.com/interviews/majidi.shtml
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/23044
http://www.cinemajidi.com/willow/articles/independentfilm-interview.htm
Lee wrote:
I wonder where Ali and Zahra are now? Upon what ground do their shoes walk? Does the sun still pour from their faces? Do they still have that hope? Do I?
As long as people keep making films such as this, and as long as there are still fish that nibble at our tired feet, I’d have to say I do.
Hey, Lee, apparently you just need to get to either China, Japan, or South Korea:
Fish that feed on dead skin cells are a nice spa treatment
Here's another:
Magic "Fish Spa" Attracts More
:-D :-D :-D
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