Nov 10th, 2007
Children of Heaven
Over the past few years it has been a rarity for me to be truly touched by a movie to the extent that I would exert any time or thought into writing a review of it. I tend to be much more of an angst-driven writer and therefore it takes stinkers like Transformers or X-Men 3 to get me off my ass and writing.
Last night however I saw Majid Majidi’s Children of Heaven and I found myself completely entranced by a story so simplistic and humble that the screenplay would have probably been used as toilet paper by your typical Hollywood executive.
I can sum up my thoughts on this film by saying it is everything that a film should be, and everything that your typical Hollywood blockbuster is not. Now I have no idea what a typical Iranian film budget is, but I think Children of Heaven could have been produced over here for somewhere in the range of 200K.
Consider this: Mel Gibson made $25 million for starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s (who I consider one of Hollywood’s top directors) Signs. His salary alone according to my random ballpark estimate probably was about 125 times what the film budget for Children of Heaven.
Dakota Fanning ain’t got nothing on Bahare Seddiqi
Now I’m not trying to be a hater because I’m definitely a fan of Hollywood and over the past few years have really enjoyed a lot of the hits that are straight Hollywood-productions. I’m really just trying to make an over-arching observation of the differing production methodologies used byHollywood versus Persian film, and their respective results.
Children of Heaven could have only been conjured in the soul of a real artist and produced with no other intention than to bring that vision to life.
Your typical Hollywood film? Probably conjured in an executive board room and produced with the intention of generating enough revenue to ensure an appropriate return on investment.
Ironically, it is the fact that most of these Persian filmmakers don’t have a substantial budget to work with that is their ultimate liberation. The beauty in the stories they conceive is resident in the characters and the narrative that manifests, not in the empty Hollywood gestamkunstwerk of CGI and celebrity luster, a place where artistic beauty is not conceivable.
At any rate, I realize now I haven’t even talked about the film itself.
I haven’t talked about how the boy and girl manifest quintessential gender characteristics of persian men and women, the representation of class distinctions in the film or the symbolic significance of the shoes themselves. That’s because that stuff is boring.
The film is about a young boy who loses his sister’s shoes, what transpires after that initial event and the love that exists between them.
It is about the soul of Persian culture.
That’s it.
Go see it.
Now.
“It is about the soul of Persian culture”
Your insightful take from this movie is admirable. I think one of the reason for low budget is that most of the time the main characters are ordinary people and not professional actors.
Majidi is very unlucky that this movie was nominated in the same year as life is beautiful… in most other years he would have walked away with the best foreign film award.
I didn’t realize it was nominated that year. In my opinion this is a superior film anyway but I can see how ‘Life is Beautiful’ would garner more acclaim because it is probably performs better with western audiences.
This movie deserved the award, i saw it the year after it came out and i watch it almost annually now. So far theres not been a time when i didnt cry uncontrollably everrytime Ali shed a tear T_T God the movie is so touching!