The Ladies Room, and: Iranian Journey, and: Women Like Us (review)

FILM REVIEWS 157 FILM REVIEWS The Ladies Room (Mahnaz Afzali) 2003, 55 minutes Iranian Journey (Maysoon Pachachi) 2003, 54 minutes Women Like Us (Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri) 2003, 60 minutes Reviewed by Shahla Haeri, Department ofAnthropology, Boston University With lifting up the social restrictions in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, and beginning in the early 1990s, Iranian cinema found a new life and new horizons. Narrating simple yet touching quest stories, often with children as their main protagonists, Iranian directors have since gained recognition in Europe and America, achieved public acclaims, won grand prizes, and attracted large crowds at the box office. Iranian women directors, script writers , and producers have been particularly successful. Some have advanced to the forefront of Iranian cinema, tackling culturally taboo and socially sensitive subjects in women's lives, gender relations, and gender ideology in their society. One of the most popular genres among Iranian film makers in general and women in particular is that of documentaries. Whereas Iranian women inside the country have attempted to challenge the prevailing insiders' beliefs and perceptions of women, some Iranian film makers who live and work JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 2005). C 2005 158 sa JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES outside the country have attempted to document women's lives in order to humanize them for a different audience, one who by and large has a negative view of "Muslim women." These three video documentaries fall in the latter categories. They have done much to challenge prevalent stereotypes about Iranian women and to bring out the diversity and complexity of their lives. With care and sensitivity , the three women film makers, two Iranian and one Iraqi, also help to lift the veil of prohibitions and secrecy in Iran and take a peek under the sacred canopy of patriarchy's law and religion. Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri's Women Like Us is a gentle and sensitive portrayal of the daily routines of five Iranian women from different regions, backgrounds, and professions in Iran. Her main objective is to underscore the similarity ofwomen's lives there and women like us here: diverse, involved, unique, and, for some, fulfilling. Except for Kubra, a rice farmer from the Caspian Sea region, the other four women are from Tehran or live in Tehran and seem to be from middle to upper middle classes. Kubra is a gracious gentle woman with a shy yet infectious smile. She appears to be in her early to midthirties, and when she is not planting rice seedlings, she busies herself with other household chores, including carpet weaving. Her husband was martyred in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), leaving her a widow. Reminiscing about him, she sweetly but bashfully admits how much she misses and dreams of him and how she liked him when they got married. She blushes, however, to say that she has remarried a married man, and for that matter he visits her only once a week. She reasons that being married even as a man's second wife is better than not because it stops people from gossiping about unmarried women. We meet a journalist friend ofthe director, Soudabeh. Unveiled at home, Soudabeh wears a white scarf and long overcoat (Islamic hijäb, required of all women nine years and above when appearing in public) as she gets into her car to attend a meeting. Soudabeh and her husband have a friendly and congenial relationship, and while she argues that most Iranian men want their wives to stay home and cook for them, her husband, whom we see washing the dishes in the background, has apparently no problem sharing the household chores. The inexplicable thing in this episode and the others is that the director asks Soudabeh to put on her scarfwhile being interviewed, against the (mild) protest of Soudabeh and her husband. The scene is repeated with Mahsa, who is clearly from an upper middle class background and very modern. She FILM REVIEWS 159 wears her off-white scarf at all times, elegantly wrapped around her head and draped over her shoulder, even when she is at home playing piano. It is not quite...