n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie feels the heart wrenching. The Children of Heaven is a beautiful illustration of how adversity draws people closer together. This is the best children's movie i have ever seen.

I have been on a "family movie" kick recently. An odd genre to delve into. And no, I am not a nostalgia addled twentysomething revisiting Disney. I'm talking anything that moves and talks and is inoffensive enough so that parents can let a screen babysit their munchkins for 2 hoursish. This genus of film shelters the lazy and has historically provided us with the most notorious specimens of hackery. Beyond the trash however, there exists children's movie that inspire wonder. It is these films, where creators did not compromise on their art, that feel as if they are abandoning me. I am inured, always on guard. Is simple innocuous sentimentality so unstomachable even when not squishy? I blame society. Children of Heaven is my only recent escape from this cultural conditioning.Let's first address the most obvious possibility why Children of Heaven is an exception. Writer/Director Majid Majidi is from Iran and this is a Persian language film. Now any film veteran knows that flowery words can work beautifully as subtitles and be completely hollow when audible. This is a wrench in the works when reviewing foreign language films. So unless I learn Persian, I cannot say exactly how resilient I am to the syrup. I'll get right on that. So I am sure the unfamiliar tongue does lower my guard, but I am convinced that is not the deciding factor. The source of conflict is sublime. Children of Heaven is the story of how young boy Ali survives day to day life after misplacing his sister Zahra's shoes. There is a duality to this problem's scale. Even the smallest mishaps can be tragedies for children. Lost shoes seem like one such problem, yet Ali's family is poor. With the rent past due, Ali's father overworked, and his mother injured, even the smallest mishap can push a vulnerable family over the brink. With this and their father's potential ire in mind, the siblings choose to handle this problem on their own.This seems a reasonable undertaking for a pair of elementary schoolers, but we forget how integral shoes are in everyday life. They are practical, but also convey style and status. So when Ali and Zahra share a pair of worn out tennies this arrangement colors their day to day life. Still, the loss is not a McGuffin driving a plot, but a perspective. Ali and Zahra live where school is run in shifts to maximize the use of the facilities. Zahra takes the shoes in the morning, dashes to a meeting place, Ali trades her sandals hopefully in time to get to school without being tardy. A reasonable arraignment, but imagine trying to get your sister to ware your beat up oversized shoes or wearing ugly ill-fitting boats to school. So no, plot lovers, this is not a story for you. Just life in the face of the tiny obstacles the size of the world. The dilemmas never seems forced our overly dramatized. The director knows the peril these narratives pose to our attention spans. The movie is not even 90 minutes long. Identical to the similar Bicycle Thieves. There is a climax to Children of Heaven, but it does not resolve the problem of the shoes. There are some hints, but Children does not have a slick Hollywood ending. This has and will continue to perturb some viewers, but I argue they missed the point. Majidi is a measured storyteller. Like the family, authenticity hangs on a delicate precipice. Heartwarming, but another dash of cuteness could send the film tumbling into an abyss that has claimed so many others. Children of Heaven finds the balance and a place in any beating heart.

The film starts with Ali fetching his little sister Zahra's pink shoes after a cobbler has repaired them. He leaves them unattended to buy some potatoes. While he is pre-occupied, a homeless man picks up the shoes, hidden in a bag, thinking it was garbage and takes them away. Frantic to find them, the young boy thinking the shoes fell behind the crates knocks over plates of vegetables and is chased away by the grocer.Ali's family lives in a poor South Tehran neighbourhood, and are having financial trouble, so he fears to tell his parents about the mishap. The landlord argues with Ali's mother because she is five months behind on the rent, and the grocer has not been paid in a while either. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and begs her not to tell their mother; she agrees. That night, Ali's father scolds him for not helping his ill mother when she asked. While the siblings were doing their homework, they passed notes to each other discussing what to do. They devise a scheme to share Ali's Converse sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and return them to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. Ali does well on a test and his teacher awards him a gold-colored pen with the others in his class that got good grades; he gives it to Zahra to partially make up for losing her shoes. However, the uncomfortable arrangement between him and his sister leads to Ali being late three times in a row, no matter how hard he runs; the first time the principal ignores him, the second time he gives him a warning, the third time he tells Ali to leave and return with his father who is at work trying to make money. Ali's teacher noticing Ali's tears persuades the principal that Ali is at the top of his class and to give the boy one more chance and let him back into class.

I wasn't prepared to see the movie because it was the first time I am seeing a foreign movie which has no English/action/sci-fi in it. I was little afraid that I might waste the time watching the movie as I am not aware of what it was about. At the end, thank god! It has a very simple story line - a brother helping his sister - in a very tender and sweet yet with some sore in it. His plans, efforts for the cute loving sister is what that makes this movie a masterpiece if one has to say. If Godfather is a masterpiece in its stylish don genre, well this one says "one can also make a masterpiece with a simple story like this". Godfather made me love that movie, characters but this movie taught me what is love!Must watch and it will be a emotional experience for all of us.