The director and screenwriter of "Little Shoes" are Iranian Majid Majidi. In Persian, the original name of the film means "children of heaven", so some people named the film like this. But if this is the case, it will have the same name as a French film in 1945, so more often, people still call this film "Little Shoes".
The story of the film is very simple, with a strong restraint, and almost no space is spent on sensationalism. But at the same time, behind these seemingly calm and simple narrations, one can perceive the director's soulful creative intentions. He did not consume these dramatic tensions and emotions just because the audience likes sensationalism, because although doing so seems to make the emotions stronger, it will also make the emotions cheap.
It is a respectable quality for a director to maintain a restrained affection in front of the story, and it is also a respect for the audience. However, although the film does not seem to have any fancy and obvious skills, the director uses the unpretentious film language that is not easily perceived by the audience to tell the story. There are many running scenes in the film, but the audience doesn't feel distracted at all when watching it, as if caught by the camera. The main reason for this tension is that the camera deliberately reduces the representation of the space in front of the running character.
This creates a kind of suspense, that is, when the character moves, we don't actually know what will happen in the next second. Is there an obstacle in front of him? Will something happen next? So the sight is attracted by the lens like a magnet. At the same time, some prospects are also used to emphasize the speed of the character's running, which further strengthens the suspense.
There is also the use of light. When Ali put his feet in the pond at the end of the film, the director set the angle of the camera and the light source, so that the water around Ali was shining with mottled light.
Perhaps, for a restrained director, this level of lyricism is the maximum expression of his own emotions. Speaking of which, an unpretentious but good-looking movie often has these introverted and imperceptible skills, and this method of making skills invisible is the most respectful and friendly to audiences who do not understand the language of film and television. Speaking of the movie, the movie tells the story of Ali and his family, under the various powerful life pressures brought by poverty, sticking to their kind heart and working hard to persevere.
As soon as I got the first money, the bicycle brake failed. Just after washing my new shoes, it rained and fell into the stinky ditch. It seems that these big and small hardships and setbacks will come at an unknown moment. The director's performance of poverty is very realistic. Many viewers did not have a similar experience with the film, or even the same cultural background, but they were equally moved. The human nature portrayed behind the story of the film is boundless. Ali and his family have maintained their kindness in poverty and hardship. They have tried their best to live, and have never used unrighteous means to gain anything. They are also full of sympathy. After seeing that the girl's father is blind, they will no longer follow up.
However, when Ali struggled to cross the final 70 meters of the track and failed to finish third, he did not look like he got what he wanted.
He was exhausted and toiled in his heart, but maybe somewhere, some good things he didn't know were waiting for him.
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