Theme and Elements Commonly Used in Iranian Movies

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Iran Reflection Paper
The film, Children of Heaven outlines the lives of Ali and Zahra. The two children are from a poor background, and the movie focuses on a situation where Ali loses Zahra’s shoe. Ali persuades her sister to hide the truth from the family because the family already has enough troubles. The scenario is followed by other events that propel the story to the end. Therefore, this reflection will focus on the story being told by the mise en scene, the themes and other elements commonly found in Iranian movies, and the lessons learned about Iran.
The movie’s mise en scene is a representation of the real Teheran society. Similar to other Iranian movies, the film is a representation of a real society. It is set in an environment that shows scarcity of food and the Teheran clothing, which is woolen. The setting also shows the hardships faced by Turkish people in the south. I think this set was made to emphasize the theme of poverty that the entire story attempts to tell. Most of the scenes in the movies evoke feelings of pity and the levels of hardship that people in Teheran go through. For instance, Ali’s father goes through many hardships in an attempt to feed his family. The film further elaborates the extent of the poverty in the southern part of the city by comparing it with the riches in the northern part of the city. This is an allegory to the situations in most parts of the world. Part of the population has to be extremely poor, while another is extremely wealthy. I think the film was made to show the concept of unequal distribution of resources in society. If resources were distributed equally, society would not have extremely rich or poor people. Unfortunately, such equality is hard to achieve in society, and there will always be the poor and the rich people.
The setting of the movie is also made to outline the Iranian religion and custom practices. The largest part of the population in Iran is Muslims. It shows the custom practices where people have to look out for their neighbors. For instance, Ali’s family prepares sugar cubes that would be served in the mosque (Majidi). This depicts how some Iranians show concern for their neighbo...