Children of Heaven

I joined Netflix a bit ago, ensearching for a Czech flick they don't have... but I figure I can go with the $5 a month to get two movies; no point in doing more, I don't watch enough movies to make more worthwhile.

I like movies that are not anxiety-provoking, so horror flicks, a lot of action adventure (depending) and some drama even, are out. I couldn't make it through Slumdog Millionaire; I do not want to watch someone being tortured.

Tonight I have the movie Children of Heaven, from Iran. I'm thinking, among other things - oh goody, only 80 minutes. But I'm also curious to see what a movie from Iran looks like; we pay far too little attention to other cultures.

It's the story of a little boy, who is bringing home his sister's shoes, newly fixed, and he puts them between two boxes while he gets potatoes, at which point a blind man picks up the shoe bag, thinking it's garbage, and walks off with them. His sister only has the one pair of shoes, so they begin a relay: she goes to school in his shoes, when she gets home, he runs off to school in them.

At her school, all the girls stand in lines, wear head coverings, everything other than their face and hands is covered. At his school, they sit three to a table, the walls are cracked, and the boys run about, unruly.

At home, they obey their mother and father, and don't tell the father about the shoes, because he has no money anyway, and they would be beaten.

The sister sees her shoes on a classmate, but she and her brother discover the father is blind, and do not confront them. The blind man goes one day and gets his daughter new shoes; the original shoes are thrown out.

The boy enters a district-wide long-distance race (2.4 miles) where, if he comes in third, he wins a pair of sneakers. He promises his sister he will come in third, and trade the shoes in for a pair for her.

As he runs, he thinks of his sister; he is in third when a boy comes up and pulls him by the shirt, pulls him down. He gets up, runs on, in the front pack of five, all jostling about. Ultimately, he crosses the line first. His teacher and principal are thrilled, smiling broadly; in the picture of him as the winner, he has tears in his eyes.

As he goes home, it shows his father - undoubtedly at the first of the month - buying things, including a pair of shoes for each of his children.

The son goes into the courtyard by their house, ashamed, sees his sister. She stares at him silently, while he looks at his feet. Their younger sibling cries; the sister goes off to tend the baby. The boy, alone and ashamed, pulls off his shoes, the soles cracked and falling apart. Then his socks. His feet are full of blisters, and he puts them in the courtyard pool.

Fine.

What is the lesson? To uphold your promises, at all costs? To be ashamed when you do not, although he ran a courageous race and did well? He promised his teacher he would win to be allowed to enter the race: is it that promises to family are more important than those to others? Is the lesson of solidarity (the brother and sister), of disappointment (hers), of irresponsibly spent money (the father's)?

I know it is not the lesson my culture would have offered. In the U.S., it would have needed a happy ending to pass muster - the boy would trade with the third place finisher, a kindly neighbor would donate shoes, the boy would magically find a pair. This movie is more complex, and I am not sure what I think of it. I think someone from Iran could tell me what I do not understand; to them the important points and the consequence would be clear.

I do know that I appreciate the ambiguity; our spoon-fed morality simply allows us not to think, and to lament when things do not go "as they should." Life doesn't go as it should. Perhaps that is the lesson: unintended consequences.