Apu’s World

Last evening, I chanced upon Children of Heaven, playing on TV; vaguely remembering this movie as having won some accolades, I sat down to watch, and am I so glad I did! It has to be one of the sweetest and saddest movies I’ve ever seen. Children of Heaven is an Iranian movie that was nominated to the Oscars (Best Foreign Language film) in 1998, and though the English dubbing could have been better, it still couldn’t take away from the beauty of this movie.

The plot is simple, and revolves around a brother (Ali) and sister (Zohra) from a poor family, who have to share a pair of sneakers in order to go to school, when Ali loses Zohra’s shoes. The longing for new shoes, the maturity of the children, the quiet understanding between then, the occasional squabbling - every little thing was such a treat to watch.

When Zohra complains that she feels ashamed to wear such dirty sneakers, and the two children wash the shoes at the communal pond, they delight in the large, shiny bubbles that the soap suds are good for - it would be hard to find such unadulterated joy in too many movies.

When Zohra loses a shoe in the gutter, and runs along chasing it, her desperation is heart-breaking to watch. Somewhere then, there is a child to whom a pair of shoes can mean so much.

I am not going to reveal the end here except to say that it is not entirely what you’d expect. Children of Heaven, reminded me in some ways, of the Blue Umbrella, another movie about children, but not just for them; cynical and worldy-wise adults are likely to be the ones with the most to take away.

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