Very good (if a bit sentimental) Iranian film

Rating: 8/10 (16 June 2007)

One of the new Iranian cinema's most accessible films, this is actually a very worthy movie, if a bit on the sentimental side (while Iranian movies have a strongly humanistic bent, they usually reject maudlin sentimentalism). Directed by Kiarostami's disciple Majidi, this story tells the tale of a brother and a sister from a poor neighborhood in Tehran. Problem comes when the boy, through no fault of his own, loses her sister's shoes. Since their family is too poor to buy a new pair of shoes, they have to share their shoes in secret, trading them off in a rush every day. The boy eventually comes up with a plan to solve this problem: entering into a race that gives a pair of shoes as a prize to the third-placed runner. The climactic race is a bit on the sentimental side, but the movie is very much worthwhile watching. And it has some nice side plots, as when the brother goes with his father to a rich Tehran neighborhood to find work as gardeners.