Oh my god! what a GEM! Enuf said – run to your Netflix Q or nearest Video store to grab this. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen – right up there with ‘Life is Beautiful’. From the famous Iranian director Majid Majidi comes this simple tale of a brother and sister, told with such elegance, such attention to detail that you will be riveted to the screen for the whole 90 minutes (minus a crappy 5mins in between). Seems to be an loose inspiration from the old 40′s Italian movie ‘The Bicycle Thief’ – but I liked Children of Heaven much better than B/W Bicycle Thief (may coz of the cute factor:)

Without exploiting the suffering of the poor for a cheap tear drop, this film manages to weave their suffering into the fabric of the story and concentrating on the brother sister relationship as they fight through the odds. The characters are shown as happy, content and honest. The school headmaster, the ailing neighbor, the landlord all shine through Majid’s excellent characterization. You are guaranteed to fall in love with the little kids: lion hearted Ali and doe eyed Zara.

After seeing Abbas Kiarostami’s critically acclaimed ‘Taste of Cherry’, which turned out to be such a drag – I was wary of picking up another ‘art’ film – but I am glad I did. No fancy camera angles, no special effects straight simple and gripping!

A must must see.

***** (5/5)

Just saw this 1929 Russian film. It was in Time’s top 100 films list. This must be the oldest film I’ve ever seen (My Grandpa was a 1year old toddler when this was being made!

Did I like it? Well, just as any avant-garde movie I’ve seen – I didn’t just didn’t get it. It was way over my small head – all I saw was random Moscow scenes with some excellent BGM score. Tell that to an art historian – I would have probably been court-martialed.

But switching on the DVD commentary, a film professor did give some insights on how it was a effective the film was as a soviet propaganda tool, a stark commentary on social divide, a modern expression of grandeur and delight, a strong statement of Anti-Americanism or as Time says a ‘poetic tribute to modernism’s hopeful beginnings’. Woah woah, hold your horses there – where did you guys see all that? Was it in that shot of a sleeping beggar scratching his underarms? Or was it in the infinitely spinning cotton yarn or that horse will runs forever or that 3min shot of a static bridge? I just don’t get it – why don’t they rate these art films as IQ-155, just like PG-13.

But to the films credit, I was spellbound by some of its technical accomplishments – freeze-frames, dual stitch shots, multi edits, time lapse, claymation type of motion, special effects, sync background score – it certainly was an monumental accomplishment at that time. But the intended message was well hidden – maybe that’s the purpose, coz only a few are supposed to read the encrypted meaning (being a communist tool) or maybe I didn’t understand it coz I didn’t belong to that era –
Grandpa? What do you think?

*** (3/5)