Children of Heaven

Children of Heaven 1997 Iranian Film

Plot Summary (taken from Wikipedia):

The film starts with Ali (Amir Farrokh Hashemian) fetching his little sister Zahra's (Bahare Seddiqi), pink shoes after a cobbler has repaired them. He leaves them unattended to buy some potatoes. While he is pre-occupied, a homeless man picks up the shoes, hidden in a bag, thinking it was garbage and takes them away. Frantic to find them, the young boy thinking the shoes fell behind the crates knocks over plates of vegetables and is chased away by the grocer.

Ali's family lives in a poor South Tehran neighbourhood, and are having financial trouble, so he fears to tell his parents about the mishap. The landlord argues with Ali's mother (Fereshte Sarabandi) because she is five months behind on the rent, and the grocer has not been paid in a while either. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and begs her not to tell their mother; she agrees. That night, Ali's father (Reza Naji) scolds him for not helping his ill mother when she asked. While the siblings were doing their homework, they passed notes to each other discussing what to do. They devise a scheme to share Ali's Converse sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and return them to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. Ali does well on a test and his teacher (Dariush Mokhtari) awards him a gold-colored pen with the others in his class that got good grades; he gives it to Zahra to partially make up for losing her shoes. However, the uncomfortable arrangement between him and his sister leads to Ali being late three times in a row, no matter how hard he runs; the first time the principal ignores him, the second time he gives him a warning, the third time he tells Ali to leave and return with his father who is at work trying to make money. Ali's teacher (Dariush Mokhtari) noticing Ali's tears persuades the principal that Ali is at the top of his class and to give the boy one more chance and let him back into class.

One day, Zahra notices her missing pink shoes on another student, Roya's (Nafise Jafar-Mohammadi), feet. After class, Zahra secretly follows Roya home. She later brings Ali with her for a confrontation, but from hiding, they discover that Roya's father (Mohammed-Hasan Hosseinian), the garbageman, is blind, so they decide to leave. When Roya does well in her studies, her father buys her new blue shoes and throws away Zahra's. Zahra is dismayed when she finds out from her new friend.

Ali's father, anxious to earn more money, borrows some gardening equipment and heads off with Ali to the rich suburbs of North Tehran to find some gardening work. They try many places without success, though Ali proves to be a great help to his tongue-tied father. Finally, they come upon a mansion in which a six-year-old boy named Alireza (Mohammed-Hossein Shahidi) lives under the care of his grandfather (Kazem Asqarpoor). While Ali plays with Alireza, his father works. When he is finished, Ali's father is surprised and elated by how generous the grandfather is. On the way home, Ali mentions in passing that Zahra could use a new pair of shoes; his father says that new shoes for his children is a good idea, however, their elation is short lived as their bicycle's brakes fail and the father is injured in the resulting crash.

Finally, Ali learns of a high-profile children's 4 kilometer footrace involving many schools; the third prize is one week at a vacation camp and a pair of sneakers. To his bitter disappointment, in a hard-fought dash to the finish, he accidentally places first instead. Ali returns home where Zahra is waiting for him. However, before he can reveal to his sister his disappointment in his placement in the race, she is called away by their mother. In a separate scene, there is a quick shot of the children's father's bicycle as he's riding home, showing a pair of white and a pair of pink shoes among his purchases. In the final shot, Ali is dejected as his sneakers are torn from the race—he is then shown dipping his bare blistered feet in a pool. Some versions include an epilogue revealing that Ali eventually achieves success in a racing career.

The main protagonists Ali and his sister Zahra

All That Heaven Allows

 

Plot:

The film All That Heaven Allows is a standout melodrama that perfectly encapsulates a singular family story around the larger societal pressures of conformity, social class, and women’s role of 1950s suburban America. The film introduces us to the widowed but relatively young and beautiful Cary Scott who lives alone in a wealthy suburb. Her two children, Kay and Ned attend college and visit her in the weekends, and it seems the loneliness is beginning to take it’s toll on Cary, who desires to live outside of her husband’s memory. 

Conformity, Societal Pressures, Gender:

Director Douglas Sirk conveys the social pressures she faces through the snarky and elitist Mona Plash, a member of the country club who attacks Cary for daring to wear a bright red dress to the club, which attracts the eyes of the men at the club. 

Immediately, one of the men, George, asks Cary to dance and then makes crude advances towards her despite the fact he is married. Cary refuses him and he aggressively kisses her. Cary, repulsed by his lack of morality, decides to go home and is escorted by the older bachelor, Harvey. He also attempts to initiate a relationship with Cary but it is clear his sentiments are not romantic but rather motivated by a desire to conform and have a companion. Thus it seems Cary’s only options to escape her loneliness are to be a mistress or get into a marriage of convenience. At this point Cary encounters the handsome gardener Ron Kirby. While taking care of her lawn, Ron shares his ambitions to own a tree farm with Cary and picks up on her desire to live in a carefree environment away from the judgement of others. 

                                   

(Harvey: "Of course I realize I'm not very romantic or impetuous, but then you'd hardly want that sort of thing! I'm sure you feel as I do, that companionship and affection are the important things." How romantic, huh)

Nature as a Symbol of Freedom from Restrictive and Artificial Society:

Ron's Nursery and the Old Mill

Ron asks Cary to come visit his home and and nursery, and after initially saying no, Cary acquiesces. Right away we see the dichotomy Sirk creates by the nature inclined, and free-spirited Ron and the superficial and overly critical people at the country club. Cary accompanies Ron to a party his friends Mick and Alida are hosting. There we again see the contrast between the welcoming and warm hosts and the stiff environment of the country club. There is also a racial element to this distinction. At Mick and Alida’s party, the crowd is diverse. The baker and his family are Italian immigrants and many other guests are also foreign immigrants. They don’t seem to belong to the upper class but are of humble origins. Despite this the food is plentiful and the atmosphere is merry as couples dance to Ron’s piano playing. Thus the countryside and humble townsfolk are romanticized. Even the old mill seems to be taken from a John Constable painting. 

                           

Town Country Club (The sign says it all: For Members Exclusively)

Ending Scene where Cary and Ron finally reunite

Setting is important in creation of the separate spheres between the harsh judgmental suburban society and Ron’s inviting oasis in the countryside. While Cary’s home has cold white and black checkered floors and cool blue lighting in her room specifically over her bed and fireplace, Ron’s home and the mill are filled with warm woods and green nature, creating a sense of happiness and connecting the physical nature with his personality, while the the cool colors in Cary’s home reflect her loneliness and isolation in the big empty house. 

Cary's home (even with excess ornaments, the Christmas tree looks sparse)

Connections to Elsaesser's Article "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Famlily Melodrama":

"Melodramas often use middle-class American society, its iconography, and the family experience in just this way as the manifest 'material' but 'displace' it into quite different patterns, juxtaposing stereotyped situations in strange configurations, provoking clashes and ruptures which not only open up new associations but also redistribute the emotional energies which suspense and tensions have accumulated in disturbingly different directions." (59-60)In All That Heaven Allows, the typical american suburban family is ruptured by the taboo romantic relationship of a younger working-class man and widowed upper middle class woman, causing a clash between society's expectations and Cary's romantic desires, and this in turn comes between the relationship she has with her children. 

Freudian Influences:The scene that most overtly captures Freudian influence in the film, is the scene where Kay and Cary discuss her impending date with the older Harvey. "He's pleasant, amusing... and he acts his age. If there's a thing I can't stand, it's an old goat. As Freud says, when we reach a certain age, sex becomes incongruous... I think Harvey understands that. "

Kay tells her mother that she doesn't believe in the Egyptian custom of "walling up the widow alive in the funeral chambers of her dead husband, along with all his other possessions. The theory being that she was a possession too, and she was supposed to journey into death with him. And the community saw to it that she did. Of course that doesn't happen anymore. Carey: Doesn't it? Well perhaps not in Egypt."

Also Kay describes Ned's reaction to Carey's low cut red dress as "A typical Oedipus reaction. The son subconsciously resents his mother being attracted to other men."

Link to Freudian scene in All That Heaven Allows

Link to Full Film on Youtube 

Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinin - Melodrama Between Boys

I recall when I first saw the teaser for this anime a while back, and I believe they purposefully didn't reveal too much. Only showing the poster and that's it, so when it started to air, I went into it completely blind. And since the first episode, I found myself strangely captivated by it. Although the animations were fairly explicit, in terms of the violence, and the tragedy that the main seven characters face are indeed depressing, it constantly kept me on the edge of my seat. I can't remember specifically, but I believe it was how it played with my emotions in ways I was not familiar with, especially since I stayed away from television drama and sticking to mostly cartoons. Only during class, when someone mentioned about the idea of possibly focusing on a melodramatic piece that's only between males did I realise that this series actually does resemble a lot of the qualities that a melodrama typically has.

Just to generalise what I'll be discussing on my paper, it'll contrast the qualities that I found to similar to melodramatic stereotypes and compare how their effects are different. Starting with the seven individuals themselves, they act together as a brotherhood, almost like a single entity as oppose to how the individual is usually focused on in other works. I would credit this to their ideal of being independent, and how that basically means to get stronger, which is the common masculine image. And if you were to polarize that form of thinking, then it basically means that by not being dependent on others, which is something that constantly reinforced in the film. Which does remind of the stereotypical cowboy or samurai, where their honour lies in their ability and how they typically refuse help. It does question if this is inherently present in strong male characters found within melodrama, or is it just coincidental. As for these characters though, they are no different, rarely do they ask for help, and what ends up happening is that these boys will take it upon themselves to help each other. And there has definitely been moments where they will try to sacrifice themselves, per say, in order to benefit others, which reminds me of Stella Dallas and how she basically sacrificed her own joy for the sake of her daughter.


Also being an animation, it allows for means of expressing the polarity and alignment (good or bad) just within the physical appearance of a character. With this, there are certainly more than a few characters that have sharper features that characterize them as being villainous roles and parts. The use of this medium is especially used well, especially with one particular character, who may feature softer expression and seem to be on the side of the seven boys, but that's later used to betray the expectation of the audience. Not to mention it also allows for more grotesque and deeper portrayal of events to invoke more empathy. One connection I would draw would be the Golden Demon where a woman is seen to be kicked on the ground. Though with live-action actors it may be uncomfortable, by having it be animated, not only could one focus on say, the expression or the amount of blood and pain that is conveyed through the animation, providing even more emotion.

Considering that there are about seven main characters, also in a medium that is not traditionally found in early examples of melodrama, it makes it a bit difficult to be able to focus on a singular factor and how that affects everything else. But hopefully it'll turn out decent.

Old Man Goriot

Before this class, I don't believe I've ever read a book that belonged in the melodrama genre, but it is definitely interesting noticing how the method of story telling is different from what I usually read. There were a few things I noted that I found particularly interesting, specifically the seeming random fantastical element of Goriot bending silverware, the idea of keeping secrets from the audience, and character development versus character reveal.

For the entirety of the book, I think the scene with Goriot bending the silver with his bare hands were the only part of the story that actually bordered the unbelievable compared to the unlikely, but still possible. Just as for a reminder, the justification for this scene was that one of Goriot's daughter had told him that her expenses could not be covered by her allowance as provided by her husband. And although he did not tell her at first, he really has spoiled his children and went as far as bending his precious silverware, his last reminder of his late wife, just so that his daughter can have a bit more spending money. And in order for Balzac to convince us of just how much he does love his children, he adds in this scene that is probably humanly impossible. Which makes me question the limitations of melodrama and how they relate to the sense of reality. Does it bother people at all that Goriot just bended silver with his bare hands? Or is the emotional ties between characters more important and can warrant a few breaking of the laws of physics if done well. As for my own opinion on the matter, I don't quite have an answer for it, but it would be interesting to see a story where it fails to do the same, and basically overdo its fantastical events and occurrences to the point of unbelievability.

The same passage from the book does tie in with my next thought, which is about keeping secrets from the audience. This mostly reminds of practices within mystery novels where the identification of the perpetrator is kept unknown until the very end of the novel. This practice builds suspense over a long sense of time, when that isn't a trait I typically think of when I think of melodramas. I can see suspense between moment to moment, as every second something just as important or even more so is mentioned, bringing another complex twist to the tale. For this particular scenario, it is how Goriot's daughter were never knew to be his daughters for the first part of the book, and the narrator nor Goriot ever tried to clarify the matter. And although it does get revealed eventually, the whole practice kept me curious, but I was not sure if it gave me the impression that I was suppose to feel empathetic one way or another. Whether if this was a relatively weak connection or just me, I'm not sure.

Finally, this topic is similar to the previous, but does definitely differ in some ways. Just to clarify, there are characters that grow, whose personality changes as they go events that occur in the story. This is contrast with characters who are simply a mystery or under a pretense, and it is only as events go by do we actually learn of the character's true personality. When comparing these two types of character, are they same? Do the effect they have on the story different or the same? The reason why I asked was because this subject came up in a previous class of mine and it's always been wandering in my mind and once I learned that Vautrin was actually Cat O'Nine Tails, I realised how far it was into the story. And though I didn't exactly trust Vautrin to begin with, to suddenly know that he was a wanted criminal made me feel empathetic to Eugene in the sense knowing that he was betrayed in some ways. But then I wonder, what if Vautrin was actually who he was, just a regular gentleman, and he only became Cat O'Nine Tails during the events that occur within the story while able to maintain his composure the entire time? Though I imagine, on the most basic level, I would feel the same way about him the way I do now, but I just can't seem to shake the feeling off that it could actually have an effect on the melodramatic...

Tokyo Love Story: A Modern Day Melodrama

There were some interesting elements to this short clip of an episode. One striking difference between Japanese television shows and American television shows is that the Japanese shows, there is little to no public displays of affection. When Katchi and Rika embrace for the last time before Rika leaves to go to L.A., all that they do is engage in an elongated hug. This, while certainly not a dramatic kissing scene that many American viewers may be accustomed to, is still considered an emotional and romantic gesture for other viewers.

There are certain moments in the show where scenes are drawn out, which add to the more emotional romantic love scenes or those where Rika and Katchi are saying goodbye. For example, when Katchi races to the train to reach Rika before she leaves for L.A., we see the scene of him running there seem like it takes forever. Additionally, when Katchi realizes that Rika took and earlier train, his utter disappointment and sadness can be felt by the audience due to the longer period of time.
Two melodramatic elements are a complicated love-story, again involving a third party, and unfortunate timing. Katchi is involved with a girl from home as well as Rika. This creates an obstacle for the couple to overcome. Not only that, but this allows for more emotional aspects to be introduced to the plot line including jealousy and major disappointment. The unfortunate timing of the episode takes place when it takes Katchi just a couple minutes too long to realize that he does in fact want to go to Rika to L.A. By the time he reaches the train, he finds out that Rika is gone and there is nothing that he can do to bring her back. He has essentially missed his only opportunity to hold onto that love.

This drama was considered one of the first shows in Japan that was created to connect to and reach the previously untapped mid to late 20's females. Most production companies and story lines were owned by males at the time, and a lot of the shows that they created were far fetched and did not bring anything new to the story. Love stories, while not uncommon in Japan, were never portrayed like Tokyo Love Story accomplished.

Melodrama in Titanic

Abstract: Titanic, a 1997 film by James Cameron is a remake of a popular 1950s film. The plot, based around the tragic story of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, features two protagonist characters- Rose and Jack. The film also explores a number of dramatic elements including social class juxtapositions, everlasting, intense love, and the fight between good and evil. James Cameron also employs the use of the compression of time as well as the various musical and verbal pieces to transform this story from a mere tragedy to one of an epic, ill-fated love story viewed as a melodramatic work. Not only does Titanic draw on the emotional human interactions and relationships, but it also offers commentary and criticism on class differences and societal issues.

Plot Overview: The film begins with a 101-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater telling the story of trip she took on the Titanic 84 years prior. The story flashes back to April 10^th, 1912 when the Titanic set sail from England on its way to New York. Here we see Rose as a young lady, boarding the ship with other upper-class passengers including her mother, Ruth and her fiancé, Caledon, otherwise known as Cal. At the same time, a wanderer and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third class tickets to the ship in a gambling game. As the story progresses, Jack and Rose eventually meet and subsequently fall madly in love- a love which seemed forbidden from the moment they met each other. As most viewers know, the Titanic hit an iceberg late on the evening of April 15^th and sunk completely by 2:20 a.m. that morning, claiming the lives of 1,517 women, men, and children, including Jack Dawson (“Titanic” IMDb).

Topics to Explore:
Relationships

Timing

Wealthy vs. Poor & Ethnic Juxtaposition

Song Choice: My Heart Will Go On- Emotional Attachments

Death

Epic, Ill-Fated Love Story, Everlasting Love

Mother-Soon to be Son in Law

Romeo and Juliet-ish Love Story

Religion Christian Cross

Questions:

    -Would it have been different if Jack was the wealthy one and Rose the poor one?

    -How does Rose’s defiant personality add to the melodramatic elements?

    -Does the drawn out sinking of the ship

    -Comment on society at the time? (1912)

    -Do you believe that the element of hope (in love, in survival) greatly contribute to melodrama?

    -Are you satisfied with the ending of the movie?

I also plan on exploring certain lines that I believe add to the melodramatic aura of the film. One of the most significant lines that I will be analyzing is, Jack: "Never let go." Rose: "I will never let go, Jack. I'll never let go."

I plan to conclude the paper discussing the possible reasons that Titanic was so successful as a film when most critics believed that it would be a major failure. Some of these reasons will be linked directly to the melodramatic experience of the viewers.

Through these different elements and by addressing some of these questions that I have developed, I hope to show how the viewing experience would had been different if these elements had not been present.

Last Cinderella

Last Cinderella was a popular Japanese drama that
was produced in 2013. The main heroine is Sakura, a 39-year-old single woman working in a beauty salon. She works with Rintaro, the man on the right in this picture. The man on the left is Hiroto, a BMX rider who is from a wealth family. Hiroto's sister, Chiyoko, is in love with Rintaro but Rintaro is secretly in love with Sakura. Knowing so, Chiyoko asks her brother Hiroto to trick Sakura into dating him, leaving a chance for her to date Rintaro. Sakura's two friends, Miki and Shima, also have their own personal problems that cannot be told to each other. As the drama progresses, we can see how each character deals with their own problems.



One popular aspect of melodrama involves love triangles (or anything above that). In Last Cinderella, there are several love triangles involving all the characters. Chiyoko loves Rintaro, but Rintaro loves Sakura, who in return loves Hiroto, a young man who is already seeing multiple women for one night stands . Although Hiroto was dating Sakura for Chiyoko's sake at first, he does end up falling in love with Sakura in the end and wants to do everything he can to stay with her. Sakura's friends, Miki and Shima, are unknowingly also involved in their own messed up love triangle. Miki is married, but her husband refuses to have sex with her, making her feel as if she's doing something wrong or is perhaps unattractive. Shima is a divorced woman who is still haunted by her past, so she refuses to get married and has multiple one night stands. Shima unknowingly almost has an affair with Miki's husband, and they both try to hide that from Miki to protect her feelings. The multiple love triangles definitely helps define this drama as melodramatic.

Besides love problems, there are also emotional aspects of the drama that makes it very melodramatic. If you watch this drama, you do not find out that Chiyoko and Hiroto are siblings until much later. I was under the impression that they were perhaps lovers who were fine with the other seeing someone else too. They bought things for each other and although they seemed to fight with each other, their interactions with each other seemed more like lovers than anything else. Finding out that they were siblings was a huge shock for many fans. Besides the hidden sibling relationship between these two, we learn that although Chiyoko regards Hiroto as her brother, she is also vengeful towards him for being responsible for the injury on her back.

This photo is of Hiroto and Chiyoko eating together at a cafe aimed towards couples.

This photo is of Hiroto hugging a drunk Chiyoko from behind after she has an outburst, blaming him for "ruining her life".







Although love relationships are used often in melodramas, familial relationships are also used often. Miki's mother-in-law is the classical "monster-in-law", and her own life goes downhill after her mother-in-law decides to move in with them. Miki is treated as a slave by her mother-in-law, and although frustrated, puts up with it. The most heartwrenching scene involving Miki was her hearing her mother-in-law say, "Miki is innocent so she makes a good housewife. But because of that she's very stupid," to her husband. The worst thing was that her husband did not defend Miki. As an audience member, Miki was also another character that we as an audience felt immense sympathy towards.

The importance of family was also emphasized in this drama. Miki and her husband already have children, so they seem like a typical family. However, Shima, Miki and Sakura's friend, almost has an affair with Miki's husband. When Shima learns of his identity, she immediately tries to stop contact out of respect and consideration for her friend. The concept of loyalty and friendship can be seen throughout Shima's actions. However, Shima and Miki's husband still somehow maintain contact, and Shima decides to reveal to him her secret, hoping to convince him to stay with Miki and to remain loyal. Shima has one night stands because she can't fathom the thought of getting married after what her ex-husband put her through. Shima is infertile, enraging her ex-husband, who had wanted a family. Learning this, Miki's husband pities Shima, but he also reconsiders how he has hurt Miki's feelings multiple times recently. Having a conflict, making an attempt to solve the conflict, and then reflecting over the issue is a major inclusion used in melodrama.

The secrets that each character keeps also makes this drama have a melodramatic aspect. As an audience member, we are able to see what each character is dealing with, so we can feel some sort of emotion, such as sympathy, towards each character. The emotions felt by the audience forms a sort of connection with the character, making us feel like we are experiencing the events unfold. The importance of maintaining relationships, whether love, friendship, or familial, is also emphasized. As an audience member, we can relate to at least one character in some aspect, which I think was a huge reason why this drama was so popular.