Children of Heaven

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2003)

Its a short story like Vannadhasan's in Tamil. It's poetic in nature. The characters are all good people. Its a children movie. There are always arguments about showing 'what people are' and 'what people could be' in movies. For this story there is no need to show people as they are. That would shadow the main point of the story-Love inspite of one's struggles. So far I have seen only this Iranian movie. But its wonderful. The director's view is exactly coinciding with a child's view. 'Bubbles', 'sneakers in the rain','girl looking at all shoes in the prayer', 'class room dialogue for football match between students' and 'giving the new pen gift to the sister' are typical of children. The film has much more. The 'poverty' is not stressed much. But that is also the reason for viewers enjoying the movie instead of feeling the social contrastness. As I see from a country like India I felt very closer to the Iranian people because their life style portrayed in this movie looks familiar and gave me the feeling that people are same everywhere. In India for the past decade since the Babri Majid demolition there has been ill opinions about the life style of Muslims (closed, religiously fanatic ,inhumane and possesive) spread by the fascist movements like RSS and BJP. Movies like these may help ordinary film goers in some way.