Movie about sneakers

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2007)

Children of Heaven (1997) is a great movie with an overarching theme about the will of God. The main character, Ali, attempts to challenge the will of God throughout the movie, and the will of God continues to prevail. The will of god dictates many of the events in the movie; the most important events being when Zahra's (Ali's sister) shoes are lost and the climatic race that Ali participates in. The general message in the movie, as depicted by these scenes, is that everyone is subject to god's will, and that if one has faith in God, he or she will have all their needs met.
The first example of God's will in the movie is when Ali loses Zahra's shoes. The shoes were accidentally taken by a trash collector, and this event is the launching point the movie's plot line. Ali blames himself for the loss of the shoes, and he spends the entire movie challenging God's will in an attempt to get the shoes back, or get new shoes. However, from the Muslim perspective, the loss of the shoes is God's will, and if Ali would just accept this and submit to God's will, his life would be better.
Water represents God's will, and the movie makes good use of this representation. Everyone should submit to God's will, and when Ali and Zahra do not by sharing shoes and not accepting that Zahra's shoes are gone forever, God's will interferes with the plan. Zahra drops a shoe in the water drain on the way home one day. Since the water is God's will, it could be assumed that God is making their lives difficult, so that they will give up and submit to the will of God like they should. However, Ali refuses to give up, and he decides to enter a race in order to win a new pair of shoes for Zahra.
The new pair of sneakers is the third place prize for the race that Ali enters. Ali promises Zahra that he will come in third in order to win the sneakers, and then he would trade them in for girl's shoes. The problem is that by doing this, Ali is continuing to challenge God's will. Nevertheless, Ali participates in the race and he wins first place, but in his mind, he did not win because he wanted third place for the shoes. When he goes home he does not even have to tell Zahra the he failed for her to know. The last scene is Ali soaking his feet in water, which is the will of God, and having his feet cleaned by goldfish. The goldfish could be seen as manifestation of God's will because they are part of the water. With this assumption, Ali's feet being cleaned by the goldfish could represent how God's will is going to take care of Ali now that he has submitted to it. It is also interesting how the scene prior to the last shows Ali's father buying new shoes for Ali and Zahra, but the last scene does not show Ali and Zahra getting the shoes. This shows that the most important part of life is trying ones hardest. It does not matter Ali failed in the quest to get his sister new shoes. What matters is that Ali tried his hardest, and that he finally accepts the fact that he cannot get Zahra some shoes. This unfulfilling final scene also shows that if one submits to will of god, his or her life will be better. This is scene by how everyone knows that Ali and Zahra will get those shoes their father bought now that they have submitted to the will of God. Overall, one message in this movie is that to have a good life, one must submit to the will of God.