Children of Heaven

Children of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian film by Majid Majidi. The movie begins with a man fixing a young girls shoes. Ali is the one in charge of bringing them back home. He also was supposed to get food on the way back. He successfully got the bread and potatoes from the 2 different vendors. But while he was choosing the potatoes he had to put down the other items he was carrying and the garbage man mistakened his bag of shoes for a bag of garbage and threw it away with the trash.

Ali goes home without the shoes and tells his sister Zahra not to inform the mother for fear of getting in trouble. He promises to go back out and find them, however, he does not find them and makes a deal with his sister to share his pair of sneakers since luckily Zahra has school in the morning and Ali has school later on in the day.

After the first 2 days of Ali being late, the principal tells him that if he is late 1 more time he will be expelled. Ali is late every day even though he runs as fast as he can to school. The 3rd time he is caught again and told to go home and not to return without his father. Thank goodness Ali's teacher helps him out and explains to the principal that Ali is a good student who gets high marks.

Zahra notices her old shoes being worn by another girl at her school. She follows her home and comes back on another day with Ali to show him. Zahra eventually becomes friends with this girl after she drops a pen within her line of sight and the girl returns it the next day and they tell each other where they live.

Ali gets the chance to enter into a race at school for all 3rd and 4th graders, and he knows he can win since he has started running to school everyday to not be late. He discovers that the prizes are different for each place and the 3rd place prize is a pair of sneakers. The first and second place prizes are better for the individual but all Ali is concerned with is getting his sister a new pair of shoes so he plans to lose the 1st and 2nd place on purpose just to get 3rd to get the shoes and then trade them in for girls shoes.

The bad thing that happens during the race is that its so close. There are 3 people running neck and neck and Ali realizes that he has to stay in front of at least 1 of the people but since they are all next to each other he has to pass them all and winds up winning 1st place by accident. He is saddened by this since it means that he wont get shoes for his sister but at the end of the film there is a shot of the father and his bicycle and he is carrying 2 pairs of shoes, 1 pink and 1 white most likely for Ali and Zahra. By the time the credits roll, however, the father did not return home yet and Ali is just sitting alone soaking his blister laden feet in the pond.

This movie is a heck of a lot more exciting than i thought it could be regarding that its main plot deals with a 7 year old girl not having a pair of shoes. The drama seems like it will never end. FRom Zahra losing the one shoe in the stream to Ali getting knocked down near the end of the race, it seems like these characters could just not catch a break. And this is what makes the movie entertaining and worth watching. The 2 main child actors did a wonderful job displaying the emotions that a person would be dealing with in the same situation.