Children of Heaven

Today I watched the Iranian film Children of Heaven directed by Majid Majidi.

The film is the story of two children, Ali and Zahra, from a poor Iranian family. In the beginning of the film, we see Ali getting his sister's shoes repaired from a cobbler. He goes to a vegetable shop after that, and keeps the shoe-bag in a corner of the shop. A man collecting garbage takes the bag away mistaking it for garbage, and Ali returns home with a broken heart. Zahra cant go to school as her teacher would beat her if she comes without shoes. They cant ask their parents for a new pair of shoes, as they know that their father cant afford to buy one, and they may get a scolding for losing the old shoes. So, what should they do?

Ali proposes a solution - He asks Zahra to use his shoes. They are bigger for her feet, but she somehow manages to use them. Her classes finish earlier, and after the classes, she runs to Ali, who takes back his shoes and runs to his school. Ali is always late in school as a result of this, and the headmaster of the school catches him almost everyday. As days pass, Zahra finds another girl in her school wearing her pink-colored shoes; She follows that girl and locates her house. After some time, she comes back to the house again, with Ali to accompany her, but seeing that the girl's father is a poor blind man, the children return to their home silently. After few days, Ali sees a notice in his school, about a marathon race for children. The third prize is a pair of sneakers. He joins the race, hoping to win the sneakers for his sister. In the end, we see a disappointed Ali coming back home, as he won the first prize instead of the third, and there is just a trophy for the winner - no sneakers. But we, the audience know that his sister would soon get a footwear, as we are already shown their father cycling to home with a pair of new shoes in his bag.



Children of Heaven shows us how a simple story can be told in a brilliant and touching way. In the world of the children, the missing shoe is the most important thing. Both Ali and Zahra constantly think about it, and the girl especially finds her eyes wandering on the feet of her classmates when she walks in the school compound. However, in spite of their "tragedy", simple things of life still don’t fail to amuse them, like making bubbles out of soap. The affection between the brother and sister is shown in a moving way, reminding of scenes from Pather Panchali - Zahra finishes her exams early, as she knows that her brother would be waiting for her in the street, to collect the shoes and run to his school. Once, Ali gets a pen as a gift from his teacher, and he presents it to his sister to see the smile on her face. Through few sequences depicting search for a part-time job, the director also shows us the warmth of the relationship between father and son. The fact that the parents are actually loving and kind-hearted, and their children and struggling to hide their little secret from them, makes the story even more touching.

The acting performances of the children are excellent, and they have fully absorbed the pleasures and sorrows of the characters they play. The background music is minimal, and the camera is used to just show us what is needed. It was a beautiful experience watching this film.

Crash

Today we had an official team lunch at Gateway hotel, followed by a film, the Oscar-winning Crash, at PVR Cinemas.

Crash has multiple threads in its story, all being incidents happening in Los Angeles in a day's time. A middle-aged shop owner of Iraqi origin, is always paranoid that others are insulting and cheating him. In the beginning of the story, we see him purchasing a gun to protect himself. In another thread, a black man and his wife are insulted by a racist police officer. The incident leads to friction in the relationship between them, as the wife accuses her husband of cowardice. There is another thread about a young police officer, who complains about his colleague's racism, and wants to work independently. In another story, two black men flick a car and run away with that, discussing about racism and related issues in foul language. Next story is of a government officer (?), whose wife is constantly worried that black men will break the doors of their house and rob them. All these stories get interlinked just by chance, and in the end we see all characters attaining some sort of peace of mind.



I think the director wants to say that all the problems of racist discrimination in the society are just bubbles around our ego. In the climax scene of the film, we see two cars colliding with each other by accident, and the director shows how hatred grows in our minds just because of prejudice and little attitude problems. He also wants to emphasize that the basic nature of all human beings is good, and shows this through two memorable sequences. In one scene, the Iraqi shop owner is about to shoot a locksmith, who he believes had broken into his shop. The locksmith's little daughter suddenly rushes into her father's lap and at the precise moment, the gun fires. For a few seconds, the shop-owner as well as the audience are shocked. But then we realize that the bullet just missed the girl, and we see a sign of relief on the shop-owner's face. He returns to his home and tells his daughter that the little girl had come as angel in his life. In another sequence, the racist policeman finds himself risking his life to save a black woman whom he had insulted earlier. We also see the young policeman shooting at a black man, suspecting that he was taking a gun from his pocket, whereas he was actually trying to take out a small idol.

I liked the narration style of the director. Crash is an interesting film, however I cant say that it meets the expectations generated by an Oscar-winning film. It is a message-oriented film, and other than couple of touching scenes mentioned above, there is nothing much in it that can be called as memorable artistic experiences.

Fitzcarraldo

Watched Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982) today. It has Klaus Kinski playing in the lead role.

Fitzcarraldo has lots of similarities with Aguirre - The Wrath of God (1972), an earlier film from Herzog and Kinski. Kinski plays the role of Fitzcarraldo, a queer personality, who is obsessed with opera, and wants to build an opera house in the dense jungles of Amazon. He doesn’t get the necessary funding for this, so he takes up a contract to get rubber from the forests of Amazon, which would bring some money to him. He buys a small steamship, and along with his crew, he starts his voyage over the Amazon and its tributaries. He has to face not only the challenges posed by nature, but also the dangerous arrows from the Indians residing in the jungle.



It seems it took more than three years to make this film, and the crew of the film had to suffer more hardships than the crew of the ship that we see in the movie. Amazon has two tributary rivers flowing in parallel, and at some place they are so close and are separated by just a small hill. There is a scene in the film where the ship is dragged from one river to the other, over the hill. It seems this was done without using any special effects! All this "behind the scene" history makes Fitzcarraldo a great achievement. At the same time, it is also an engrossing and memorable film, even though I would place it behind Aguirre - The Wrath of God.