CHILDREN OF HEAVEN

A nice look into a different culture, and a small but engaging story about childhood.

Children of Heaven is an Iranian film from 1998. The director is Majid Majidi, who has over a dozen films to his credit, several of them festival winners. This one was up for an Oscar, in fact, but lost out to Life is Beautiful.

It's the story of nine-year-old Ali and his younger sister Zahra, who live with their parents in a poor part of what I assume is Tehran. Chipped paint, ancient buildings and open storm drains in the street. We're talking poor, here: a single room, carpets but no furniture, some crockery, a cooking pot on a camp stove. The landlord comes by when Dad is out, to scream at Mom about the unpaid rent. Mom is sick, Dad is angry. There may be love in this home, but not much in the way of laughter.

Behind the opening credits, we watch a cobbler repairing a torn pair of pink sneakers, and the story is set in motion when Ali loses them on the way home. They were his sister's only shoes, and now she has nothing to wear to school. He suggests they share his sneakers until they can figure something out. She'll get them in the morning, he'll get them in the afternoon.

There are some side excursions from this narrative, but that's the main line. Of course, she'll be embarrassed, wearing dirty boy's sneakers that are much too large. She'll be delayed, so he'll be late. The Vice Principal will see him, ruler in hand, and demand explanations.

What struck me most was how consistently grim, authoritarian and unreasonable was the world of the adults. They almost never smile, are suspicious of the children and quick to anger. Think Oliver Twist in Persian. I wouldn't want to be a kid in the world of this film, and I can't remember if that's how adults seemed to me when I was a lad.

One of the few bright moments comes when Dad and Ali bicycle to the rich part of town, to find work as gardeners. Dad is as humbled by this world of money, mansions and faceless intercoms as his son is by the adults of his own neighborhood. But one old man agrees to put him to work, and Ali spends an afternoon playing with this man's grandson while Dad mulches flowerbeds and sprays fruit trees. Dad gets to do good work that he enjoys, and Ali gets to be a kid.

The big finale is a foot race, in which the third prize is a new pair of sneakers. It's beautifully shot, and great to watch as Ali tries desperately not to win, but to come in third. Winning would be comparatively simple, when you think about it. Third is much harder.

I don't know if I'd call it "heartwarming," which is a word that appears in many reviews. But it was watchable and sometimes touching.

LOOK AT ME

From the French filmmaker of the recommended TASTE OF OTHERS, a very good movie.

The music is beautiful. Singing is the heart's expression of the two primary protagonists, a not-good-looking and not-charming young girl, daughter of one famous writer and bad guy, and a vocal teacher, patron of the not-charming daughter, admirer of the famous writer, and wife to an upcoming writer who falls under the spell of the famous writer.

The famous writer is a real jerk... not a villain, but a plausible and unlovable man. The upcoming writer disappoints us by withering in the shadow of celebrity. But the young girl sings, and we love her, and the vocal teacher shivers in the wind of celebrity, but is of Stronger Stuff, and her spirit survives, too.

Good guys, good music, narrative resolution through the passions of music. Yum yum.

MEDEA

Recommended as exploration -- Greek Tragedy played in somber, soggy style on the salt marshes of Denmark.

This is a short (76 minute) film made for Danish television in 1988, by Lars Von Trier, and it got on my list via Mr. Rolston's omnibus recommendation posting from earlier this year. I don't know Von Trier's work, but I now have a heap of new stuff on the queue.

This was an occasion where my weak knowledge of the classics came in handy. I didn't know how the story was going to play out beforehand, although the end was inescapable by the half point. I don't think I'm giving anything away... Jason (he of Argonaut fame) returns home with the Golden Fleece, bringing prosperity to the land and earning the hand of the king's daughter. He'd never have accomplished this mission without Medea, who in addition to helping him bring home the bacon, has borne him two sons. Not unreasonably, the king's daughter wants Medea gone before she'll take Jason to bed. Media is more than a little creepy, knows the dark arts, and wanders in the marshes a lot. So Medea is banished. Before she goes, she takes down the princess with a poisoned wedding gift, which also does in the king and an innocent bystanding horse. Medea heads for the border, giving her sons the last word. She hangs them, leaving their bodies dangling from a tree. "By their death, I can strike at their father."

Lots of memorable images, powerful in their simplicity. The poisoned horse running itself to death. Looks like it was all done with available lighting, and very minimalist costumes and sets. Most of it's played outside, on that gloomy, windswept marshland.

It left me thinking more about the underlying story than this particular production. How would it have played out, if Medea had given birth to daughters? Is she willing to murder her own children, even though she loves them, because she knows they can only grow up to become men?

BILLIONS

I won't tell anything that isn't in the trailer.

There's a little kid who cute and British and has freckles. And he builds a cardboard-box-house by the railway and a huge athletic bag full of British pounds sterling crashes inside. [It just so happens that the pound is about to turn into the Euro in a couple days, which is a nice twist.] Anyway, this cute kid and his slightly larger brother, who is also cute, in a predatory and smarmy way, with not so many freckles, got to figure out what to do with all this cash. A pretty little puzzle, and the clock is ticking. There's a lot of saints in this movie, like Francis of Asissi, and the littlest kid is pretty much cuckoo for saints. So you can guess what he wants. The older brother is a little more practical and cynical. Anyway, there's some very clean Mormons in the film, too, who get some stuff they think God thought they should have. AND there's a Christmas pantomime, for which I wish I could have been wearing Depends.

Very funny, clean, wholesome, full of surprises, and sufficient vinegar to keep the sweet sap from cloying. Four Stars for Entertainment.

NOBODY KNOWS

Japanese film, based on real events, but fictionalized. A mom and son move into an apartment. They open suitcases, and out pop three more children. The stealth children are supposed to be quiet and not appear on the balcony so they won't be discovered. No school for these kids. Mom goes out to work early and comes home late. The eldest son [at the edge of puberty] is left in charge.

Pretty soon Mom decides she will spend some time out of town with a boyfriend. She leaves the kids with some money to take care of themselves. The kids struggle, but they get along.

Then Mom disappears altogether, and the kids are on their own. Money keeps appearing, but the structures of maintaining a sense of normal life begin to break down. Life goes on. Problems arise, and are solved... but the costs are evident.

This movie goes on for two-and-a-half-hours. It's slow and resolutely understated in its dramatic events. It is the opposite of a Hollywood weepie or feel-good... straight-forward and compelling.

I liked it a lot, but can't say it was entertaining... definitely exploration.

CITY OF GOD

Highly recommended, as a field trip to a place you'd never want to be.

This is a Brazilian film released in 2002, directed by Fernando Meirelles. It's an episodic view of life in a Rio slum -- a place where everyone is poor, the police have only theoretical authority, the economy is based on drugs and prepubescent boys get to have real life shoot-outs. Think GANGS OF NEW YORK, with a Latin beat.

The stories of Cidade de Deus are told by Rocket, who's found a way out and become a press photographer. His chatty, self deprecating narration tells us how things came to be the way they are now, and he presents a Runyaneske bunch of characters which includes the Tender Trio, Benny & Li'l Dice and Knockout Ned.

The background narrative is consistently horrifying, but the film is not. It just watches, closely. Every year the gangs get younger, and by the end of the piece, they've evolved into "the Runts," feral children with sidearms and an attitude.

You should see this one.

It also gets high marks for technique. The first thing we see (and hear) is a knife drawn over a stone. Chickens are being slaughtered for a cookout by Li'l Dice's gang. One chicken escapes and runs down the alley. The gang pursues, taking potshots at it along the way. They chase the chicken into an avenue where Rocket and a friend are walking toward them. The gang yells "Catch that chicken!" Rocket crouches to grab it, and behind him, police cars pull up to block the end of the street. The gang draws its weapons, the cops draw theirs, with Rocket and the chicken frozen between them.

And so the movie begins.