For a while, I often wondered, what kind of mentality should I use to watch a movie? Is it to devote myself desperately, treat myself as a story, cry and laugh together, or should I calmly maintain a certain amount of rationality and make the director ingenious. Deconstructing and separating the elements that are like kneading together, and smiling knowingly about their successful extraction from time to time?
I like both names of this movie. "Little Shoes" sounds pure and delicate. Using a noun that represents an object to represent a story must have the role of its dynamic clues, but at the same time it is a static implicit. The little shoe is the cause, the center, the protagonist of the movie, affecting Ali and Sarah, as well as outsiders like me. After the story is told, the movie ends, the memory is sealed, and the small shoes are the label of this box.
"Children of Heaven" doesn't look that appealing, maybe a lot of people think of a not-so-new theme from the name, and then wisely give up their interest in movies. However, after watching the movie, I rode back from the classroom all the way, and I was full of excitement echoing such a phrase. It seems that only such a description can accurately describe the beauty of children.
The reason why people are moved, I think it is because of such beauty. Every child in the film is so innocent and kind. Ali, who has big eyes, originally participated in the competition in order to win the third runner-up prize so that he could give his sneakers to his sister, but he accidentally won the championship. Facing the enthusiastic photographer, only a pair of tears of grievance remained. This honor meant nothing to him, but made his promise to his sister come to nothing, leaving him speechless about the expectations in his sister's smile. The beautiful Sarah accidentally found her lost shoes. She originally asked her brother to confront her, but because she saw the little girl's blind father, she felt instinctive sympathy, until the girl finally changed her shoes. He threw away his tattered old shoes and didn't say a word to her. The little daughter of the blind father found the golden mechanical pencil that Sarah had left while running. She couldn't catch up with Sarah in time and was able to play with it all night, and she couldn't put it down. When she returned to school the next day, she returned it to her without hesitation, willing to take off her crystal slipper and become a Cinderella.
Such kindness can make one unsuspectingly believe that we feel that they are like children in heaven, or that children are a paradise. In other words, if an adult behaves like this, we may doubt their motives under the internal drive of "social common sense". Even if we believe it, we will feel that they are still a little stupid.
And the kindness in the movie makes us feel authentic, partly because it exists in the medium of the child, and partly because it is not picked and glorified. A child is a child, and being pure and kind does not mean maturity and perfection. Sarah would be shy because she was wearing an inappropriate pair of men's shoes, and while secretly looking at what kind of shoes her classmates were wearing, she pressed her feet with her schoolbag. Her little vanity grew quietly, which made her involuntarily spread her grievances on her brother who had lost his shoes, but all she needed was a beautiful automatic pen, and a smile would immediately drive away her grievances. We will feel that they are good like children, not like angels and saints, and be grateful that such goodness exists in the world.
In this way, why do we not seem to see such kindness flashing at any time and anywhere in our lives outside the movies? It is not difficult to find that in the eyes of adults, Ali is still a naughty child who knocked over things in the vegetable store, an ignorant son who "can only eat, play and sleep" at home without sharing housework for his mother. The unruly students who were late for several days and lied to their teachers were unruly students who missed the registration and preselection and insisted on participating in the competition. How would we care about Ali and Sarah, the story of a pair of little shoes if the movie hadn't dropped the camera down to the knee?
The language of the camera is a pair of hands that "tuggle" us to pay attention to them. The most representative is the two people running alternately every day. She was wearing the school uniform of an Iranian schoolgirl, a blue robe and a white headscarf, and a pair of oversized shoes slammed on the ground, and kept jumping in the alley between the school and home, on both sides of the ditch; The big man's schoolbag was anxiously waiting at the entrance of the alley, waiting for his sister and his sneakers. The two met without saying a word, squatted down to change their shoes, and ran away. The same alleys and ditches were equally uninterrupted. jumping. In the end, when Ali participated in the long-distance running competition, the intense sprint sated our appetite in slow motion, and the sound of Sarah's usual running footsteps echoed in the voice-over, setting off Ali's distorted face with all his strength.
At the end of the shot and the picture, it seems to have completely occupied the dominant position. In retrospect, it left a deep impression on us without spending a single line. First, a short glance, explaining the new shoes that Dad bought for the two; then a long look at each other, showing Ali's guilt and Sarah's expectations turning disappointed; a few big close-ups, the pair finally ran bad. Shoes, and blisters on the feet; the last quiet long shot, we see the little red fish underwater kissing the scarred and shameful feet.
Then click and it's gone. All the people are still anxiously looking forward to seeing their father come home and the joy of seeing their brother and sister get new shoes. The movie does not say, "stop at the moment before the climax arrives", the teacher said that this is the aesthetic spirit of classicism.
When I came home, I obediently wrote a film review and handed in my homework. I found that the film did not teach me to dismantle it laboriously. It gave me a coherent narrative and feeling, and I could get out of it at any time. When recalling it, it suddenly dawned on me that they had been put into my hands at some point.
I didn't shed a single tear. It turned out that this emotion was trickling down without leaving a trace.
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