Children as Protagonists in Iranian Cinema: A Look into Majid Majidi's the Children of Heaven

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SAE Institute London Written Assignment

WHY

ARE CHILDREN USED AS PROTAGONISTS IN IRANIAN CINEMA : A LOOK INTO MAJID MAJIDI’S ‘THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN ’ (1997)?

Iman Yusufali 15346 FF1011 20 August 2012 Word count: 3300 approx.

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DECLARATION:
I hereby declare that I wrote this written assignment on my own and without the use of any other than the cited sources and tools and all explanations that I copied directly or in their sense are marked as such, as well as that the dissertation has not yet been handed in neither in this nor in equal form at any other official commission. Date: 20 August 2012 Place: London, U.K. Signature: IMAN YUSUFALI

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Table of Content
Title Page Declaration Page Table of content Essay Reference List i ii iii 1 7

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WHY

ARE CHILDREN USED AS PROTAGONISTS IN IRANIAN CINEMA : A LOOK INTO MAJID MAJIDI’S ‘THE CHILDREN OF HEAVEN ’ (1997)?

Iranian cinema has numerous successful movies that have been viewed internationally, that use children as protagonists and child heroes who have to go through daily life struggles. These films include ‘Children of Heaven’, ‘Colour of God’ by Majid Majidi, ‘The White Balloon’, ‘Mashq-e Shab’ (homework) by Kiarostami and Ab Bad Khak (water, wind, dust) by Amir Naderi. The innocence of a child and the impromptu acting is sure to affect the way the story is told and witnessed by the viewers. Therefore what we are going to explore in this essay is what children could possibly represent and symbolise in films, why Iranian cinema in particular has used this notion of child-hero and we will also be analysing Majid Majidi’s film ‘The Children of heaven’ (1997) step by step, how he uses children as protagonists and what they represent in film. Ultimately, we will understand the effect of using the child-hero in films and how the audiences interpret the film. Moreover, we shall be