Films serve as a compelling medium for exploring what it means to be human, giving us insight into human nature at its best, its worst, and all the nuances in between.
Far from the quotes of Rumi and Hafiz, these three Persian films will make you enter a world you may not be familiar with, and surprise you with how people live, how the Persian film industry is, and how beautiful Islam is.
Three Persian films in Islam, two about innocence and children, one about women’s rights and divorce.
Here are 3 Persian Films to Increase Your Love of Islam
Children Of Heaven
Children of Heaven centers around Ali, and Zahra, two children with an ill mother and a willing father. One day, Ali loses Zahra’s shoes (they’re all shared), at the grocers. The landlord argues with Ali’s mother because she is five months behind on the rent, and they are also in debt at the grocer. So Ali chooses not to tell them about the shoes, instead, taking it into his own hands to win her a new pair of shoes.
Children of Heaven is a beautiful example of bravery and innocence. Ali and Zahra battle like heroes without telling their parents, and ultimately seize the day.
Their innocence is captured in the motif of them watching the goldfish swimming in the pond in their shared garden outside the house, and giggling. They stick up for each other like true heroes and have great honour, showing remorse and catharsis throughout the film. It’s beautifully shot and has themes of innocence and honour.
The Colour of Paradise
“Our teacher says that God loves the blind more because they can’t see. But I told him if it was so, He would not make us blind so that we can’t see Him. He answered “God is not visible. He is everywhere. You can feel Him. You see Him through your fingertips.” / Now I reach out everywhere for God till the day my hands touch Him and tell Him everything, even all the secrets in my heart.” ~ Mohammad
The Colour of Paradise is about a blind boy, Mohammed, who is released from a special school. His father, not so interested in Mohammed, gets busy trying to marry a local woman.
He palms Mohammed off to a blind carpenter to apprentice with him, so Mohammed doesn’t get in the way. Mohammed’s grandmother, when she realises what he’s done, walks in the rain and weeps for the shame of it, and gets ill and dies.
The Colour of Paradise is about dishonour, and the force of the grandmother’s love for Mohammed is beautiful. She is brave in her quest, and shows honour through her actions. Mohammed is innocent and an example of how Islam see children, as close to God.
A Separation
A Separation is about Simin, a woman with a 10-year-old daughter called Termeh, wants to leave Iran, and has compiled the visas, but her husband wishes to stay in Iran. They file for divorce.
The husband pushes Razieh, a pregnant woman to look after his father, the reason he wants to stay in Iran, out of his flat, and she falls down some stairs and apparently suffers a miscarriage. After many twists and turns, Simin and her husband wait to find out who their daughter will choose to live with.
(Shahab Hosseini) “Why do you think we beat our wives and children like animals?”
(Shahab Hosseini) “I swear on this Qoran, we’re humans just like you.”
(Shahab Hosseini) “You know, my problem is that I can’t speak like them. I just lose my control soon.”
A Separation is a beautifully shot, fantastically twisty plot. It brings up questions of feminism and women’s rights, and is an excellent Islamic film.
So there you have it, 3 Persian films to increase your love of Islam. I recommend you watch every one, and more.
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