Women Without Men
“Women Without Men” is the first feature film by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat’s video installation, which will address in her work for years especially with the role of women in Islam and both the eastern and western values world critically. The film is based on the novel by Sharnush Parsipur, which can be seen in a supporting role.
The film is set in the turmoil of 1953 in Tehran, as to overthrow the United States and United Kingdom Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh the democratically elected and reinstall the Shah ‘s regime, which gave the Iranians a lasting up to 1979 military dictatorship. By the protests against the electoral fraud of the government Ahmadinejad in the summer of 2009, the film wins unexpected topicality – the mood of 1953 with the current atmosphere in the country comparable.
Shirin Neshat accompanied four women who take their episodic stories more and more into each other. Munis (Shabnam Tolouei) undertakes a suicide attempt to escape the forced marriage by their radical-brother. Zarin (Orsi Toth) is in a brothel forced again and again to meet their suitors and endure the torture by trying to eliminate their humanity. Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad), a figure that recalls the poet Forough Farrokhzad decides to leave her overbearing husband and start a new life in the country. Faezeh (grandiose: Pegah Ferydoni), a friend of Munis, grieves because her brother not to marry.
In the course develops a fascinating story, which draws its strength mainly from its narrative time-displaced narrative levels and the sophisticated integration of its individual elements. The fates of four very different women distinguished “Women Without Men” with high intensity – accompanied by a huge image of God, their symbolic power and atmospheric tension a new peak of Iranian cinema highlighted. Due to the political situation in Iran had Neshat and her team over a period of six years in Morocco and turn received primarily from Germany and France for financial support.
“Women Without Men” distinguishes a deep and nuanced picture of Iranian society, and that is what was Shirin Neshat especially important – to go against the often superficial and stigmatizing view of their country especially in the Western mass media, and not least, a plea for freedom and against to create political and social constraints.
The film culminates in the brutal crackdown on protests in 1953 and all those dedicated, which have reversed in the last 100 years in Iran against the misuse of political power: “From the constitutional revolution in 1906 up to the Green Movement of 2009″.
“Women Without Men” is a terrific film debut of a gifted and dedicated director, of which hopefully get to experience many a film.
