Category Archives: Movie Review: “Women Without Men”

Binaries for a Single Gender: A Review of “Women Without Men”

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

The film Women Without Men, directed by Shirin Neshat, is set in Tehran in 1953 during a coup to bring the leader of Iran back to power.  Amid a tastefully mellow colorscape and rich cultural and organic sounds, the film follows the lives of four women during this time and reveals the effects of political unrest on their social lives.  

 

Munis:

Munis is the sister of Amir Khan.  At the start of the film, she rejects her brother’s desire for her to get married, instead choosing to closely follow the political crisis on the radio.  When he threatens to break her legs if she leaves the house, Munis jumps off of the top of a building, killing herself. Through cinematic magical realism, Neshat follows a theoretical plotline in which Munis rises from the dead and escapes her brother’s house to join the resistors.

 

Fakhri:

Fakhri, the wife of a military general, initially appears to be the most socially and financially stable of the four women.  This soon changes when her husband witnesses her admiration for an old flame, and grows jealous. He tells her that it is a woman’s job to satisfy her husband, and if she cannot, he will find a new wife.  With that, Fakhri leaves her husband and buys a house in the forest.

 

Zarin:

A prostitute whose  situation is never explicitly explained,  Zarin’s background is hinted at through her crying as a woman yells at her to prepare for a customer, as well as the image of her emaciated body in a bathhouse. She is not entirely complicit in her situation, possibly as a result of financial need.  In a final session with a customer, Zarin has a breakdown and flees the house. She is seen floating in a stream near Fakhri’s new home and Fakhri finds her, brings her home, and nurses her back to health.

 

Faezeh:

A friend of Munis’s and the more culturally traditional of the pair, Faezeh wishes to get married, especially to Munis’s brother.  Faezeh was the one to dig Munis from the ground after Amir Khan buries her, and she follows her to a coffee shop. At the coffee shop, she catches the eye of two men, who follow and rape her.  She enters a state of mental distress, and Munis takes her to Fakhri’s house, where she is taken care of and reimagines her identity and the concept of purity that she had been clinging to.

 

Completing the narratives of the four women, Women Without Men is framed in a series of conspicuous dichotomies.  The juxtapositions of two opposing concepts make apparent what Neshat is saying about each individual concept.  For example, the first and most explicit dichotomy that is introduced in the film is the binary of silence and noise.  The film opens with the sound of a horn that plays throughout. As Munis is descending through the air, she talks openly in a voiceover about how this is a leap towards silence. By beginning the film with this explicit dichotomy, Neshat prepares us to listen for sound and its absence throughout the rest of the film.  In high-energy moments of celebration or distress, there is loud clamor and music. In times of letting go, character development, women coming into themselves, and the death of self, the film has only silence or organic noises, such as the sound of a stream gurgling.

A less explicit but similarly crucial dichotomy in the film is the one between innocence and maturity.  This is most apparent in the coupling of Munis and Faezeh. Faezeh’s innocence comes at the price of naivety–she idolizes the concept of virginity, criticizing Amir Khan’s new wife for her reputation for sleeping with men, but has no grasp on what it means, suggesting that a woman’s “hole” simply grows wider after she is married– and vulnerability.  After her trauma, Faezeh chooses to opt into Munis’s more agential lifestyle. As part of this transformation, she stops wearing her head covering. When this is drawn to the viewers’ attention by Amir Khan, who asks her to be his wife, with his first wife as her servant, she reacts disdainfully. Unlike at the start of the film, she is unwilling to dismiss his character flaws, and prioritizes her own wellbeing in their relationship.  There are downsides to the maturation of the two women, though– they are both shunned by men in their phallocentric society, especially Amir Khan, and must struggle to realize their own identities and support themselves.

Additionally, there is a pairing of the urban and the organic.  The stream and Fakhri’s home are symbols of the mythical organic in the film.  When the women leave the urban, they leave men, and they are able to fully realize the power in their femininity by creating their own culture in which they can thrive.  Only Munis stays in the urban in the film, and the strength of her character lies in the similarities between her personality and the personalities of men of the film.

The setting of dichotomies may seem simple, but in fact, it is a meaningful decision.  By showing noise without sound, maturity without innocence, and organic without urban, Neshat gives the viewer no room for misinterpretation of her view of what a world of women without men would be– an oasis for healing and realizing the fullness of the feminine self.

On Hope: A Review of Women Without Men

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

“Women Without Men” (2009) is a radical push to expose the severe gender inequality in 1953 Tehran, but the esoteric scenes and surrealist moments of the film keep it from fully making its point. Directed by Shirin Neshat and based on the novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, the film follows the stories of four women as they navigate a society rampant with sexism. Faezeh is a traditional young woman who will do anything to marry her friend’s abusive brother Amir. She is an example of how women are raised to perpetuate the systems that oppress them. Zarin is a prostitute who desperately needs to escape her brothel; her situation testifies to the violent dehumanization of women in financial need. Fahkri is a disillusioned middle-aged woman who longs to leave her husband. She’s not afraid to question and challenge society’s idealized view of marriage. Then there’s Munis, a young woman fascinated by the political realm around her. She alone packs the punch of the movie’s underlying theme: that patriarchal society leaves no hope for women, and that it is time to fight for gender equality and a better future.

Right after we meet Munis, we see that Tehran is in uproar. In order to secure an Iranian government that is sympathetic to their oil interests, the CIA and British intelligence have successfully enacted a coup to overthrow the democratically appointed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The streets are filled with turmoil, including anti-coup protests which capture Munis’ attention. However, Munis’ harsh older brother Amir condemns her interest in anything but marriage, threatening to break her legs if she leaves the house. This first interaction between these two characters follows the opening scene where Munis makes herself fall off a building to her death. This juxtaposition is not an accident. The two scenes set the stage for the depiction of oppressive systems that the film will later explore.

In the surreal portrayal of her suicide, it’s clear that Munis is hopeless to the point of death. As she fades into the sky, her voice says, “Now I’ll have silence, silence, and nothing,” then she hauntingly adds that the only way to obtain freedom is to escape from the world. Since this opening scene is paired with the next one, her brother subjecting her to his commands and threatening her if she does not comply, we understand that he is the cause of her suicide. Neshat seems to be saying that as long as society condones men’s control over women, the women are doomed. Their fate is utterly hopeless.

The film shows Munis’ surreal suicide three times, marking the beginning, middle, and end. It also punctuates every other scene of the movie, recurring as a constant reminder of Munis’ destiny. In an interview, Director Neshat elaborates on how Munis provides structure for the story:

Munis represented a political character, a woman who believed in social justice and political activism without being ideological. And also by her being dead, in a way in her spirit and being, she connected the story of the country and the woman together, so she became the narrator.

By saying this, the director gives Munis’ story and voice more external authority than those of any other character, because it is she who stands as a bridge between the political climate and the personal experiences of the characters. In these ways, Munis drives the film. We always return to her perspective, as well as to her death.

The film’s intense focus on death is the principal reason this film seems bereft of hope. What is left but nihilistic surrealism? The answer: the very existence of the film. Elsewhere in her interview, Neshat speaks of the courage it took to make and distribute such a movie. Not only was the original book banned in Iran, but many of the people involved with the story were banned from their homeland as well. The writer spent five years in jail. Many cast and crew members hired to work on the movie were prohibited from being involved. However, the movie is still in circulation, even if illegally, and in response Neshat exclaims: “I couldn’t be more delighted that there is a piracy of distribution.”

The impetus to produce such a film, and the effort of distributing it, whether under the table or openly, are moves for the exposure of unjust systems. The film refuses to let these problems exist without confronting them and shares with the world just how destructive they can be. By using a movie as a tool for social reform, the creators are combining the audience’s desire for entertainment and and society’s need for justice–an effective and accessible way to mobilize for action.

On the other hand, the film is often ambiguous and opaque. Many may watch it and leave without a clear sense of its meaning. The surrealistic elements and magical realism make the plot hard to follow and the message difficult to decipher–even Munis’ triple death, the repeated centerpiece of the movie, makes no logical sense. Between a faceless man and unrealistic shifts in color–from almost monochrome shots to vibrant garden scenes–viewers are hard pressed to say exactly what happens. Arguments for social justice may be lost in such esoteric scenes. Perhaps these abstract features allow the film to cram in more meaning, but the challenge of unpacking that meaning may mitigate the benefit.

Neshat and her team may feel truly passionate about their political achievement, and the risks they took to create it are admirable. However, the means they employ blur their mission and leave viewers confused. The movie may have paid tribute to the magical realism of the novel, but was it worth keeping such convoluted metaphors?

Film Review Women Without Men: A Powerful Watch

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

Watching Women Without Men is an engaging experience. The film’s director, Shirin Neshat, is best known for her photography. The cinematography throughout the film is outstanding. The detailed images and long takes work in tandem with minimal diegetic audio to both draw the viewer in and focus attention on the immediate scene. As a result the audience comes away with hearts pounding, feeling as if they were really there beside the characters. There are some glaring plot holes in the film, but even the plot seems less significant compared against intense and immersive experience Neshat’s artistry creates.

For this, her first dramatic feature Neshat chose to adapt a novel by Shahrnush Parsipur into a movie. Both the film and the novel are currently banned in Iran. The film follows the lives of four Iranian women in Tehran during the 1953 American-backed coup. The four, Munis, Faezeh, Zarin, and Fakhri, all represent very different backgrounds of women in Tehrani society. Despite their initial differences, all in their own way go through a transformative struggle that changes their life. Throughout the film, the characters’ stories weave in and out of each other, with touches of magical realism that highlight symbolic moments.

The first scene depicts Munis falling off a building. Her death is a central element not only to her storyline but to the film as a whole. This same scene is shown three times throughout the film: at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. Even though the image of her falling through the air, face turned towards the sky with a serene expression, is repeatedly shown, the moment of impact when her body hits the ground is never actually seen. The audience is only given the scene of her falling, indicating that the most important action is Munis’ choice to jump rather than the act of suicide. Munis’ voice breaks the silence; she speaks of the desire for freedom as she falls. Her calm voice begins speaking unsettling words which seem to describe suicide as a choice to be free. Together,  Munis’ expression and message create a pervasive eeriness that lingers with the viewer, returning echoes throughout the film each time she is shown falling.

Unlike Munis, Zarin does not choose to die, nor is she resurrected. Scenes of Zarin lying down in nature precede her death. Often in these scenes the colors are uniquely vibrant. Lush green backgrounds are in stark contrast with Zarin’s pale form. These scenes are more subtle than the scenes where Munis appears, but in their mysterious beauty they are equally powerful. In contrast with Munis’ rebelliousness Zarin comes across as resigned. She gives no explanation to anyone, and shows no signs of illness until she collapses. On her deathbed Zarin expresses no desire to get better, or not to die. At the moment of her death, the sounds of Faezeh’s cries, without background music or other theatrical effects, pulls at the viewers emotions. It’s hard not to feel have an emotional reaction to Faezeh’s cries. Given that Zarin’s silence throughout the film, it is difficult to know what her death symbolizes. Perhaps it foreshadows a future in which women are unable to escape in time from their torment. Despite the ambiguity of Zarin’s character, the beautiful artistry that surrounds her death make it a deeply affecting moment, much as in the case of Munis’ death.

Throughout the film there are often glaring instances of plot holes. To name a few, after Munis’ resurrection she visits a cafe that women are not allowed to enter. Faezeh is with her, and she is noticed by the men in the cafe, but Munis is not. Later on when Munis is sitting in another cafe, she is approached by a man she saw earlier in the town square. Parts of this inconsistency can be explained by the genre magical realism, like Munis’ resurrection, and her invisibility. But even magic has logic. Munis’ selective invisibility seems random. Calling this randomness magical realism sounds more like a cop-out than a credible explanation.   

In important scenes like these, the audience is never left feeling indifferent to the characters. Neshat’s skill in cinematography expertly guides the hearts of viewers to beat strongly with each character, even when it’s hard to understand their actions. The intense, dramatic visual experience of the film leaves a strong impression that stays with the audience long after the final credits have rolled.

Wo[men]: Shirin Neshat’s Foray into Film is Allegorical Genius

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

In her first feature-length film, Women Without Men, the visual artist Shirin Neshat paints a complex picture of Iranian life in the 1950s. Based on stories by Shahrnush Parsipur, the movie follows the lives of four women who, for various reasons, are living their lives outside the status quo. Munis is almost thirty years old and refuses to get married, contrary to her controlling older brother’s wishes. Her friend Faezeh is a modest young woman who wants to marry Munis’s brother; he, however, is betrothed to someone else. Zarin is a prostitute who cannot bear to spend one more day in the brothel where she works. And Fakhri is so fed up with her marriage and emotionally neglected by her husband that she divorces him and moves out of the house. Munis, the film’s narrator, spends much of her time in the city, while the other three women meet in a safe house owned by Fakhri, where each finds her own form of refuge.

The women’s disjointed–yet somehow connected–stories are told against the backdrop of 1953 Iran. The power of Women Without Men, which began as a series of audio/video installations, does not lie in its narrative. It is a story told in moments, with the signature techniques of an installation artist visible throughout. The intensity and individuality of each scene can be appreciated as a piece of art; narrative is not prioritized. Were the scenes to be shuffled around and rearranged, not much of the story would be lost; it would almost be akin to walking the opposite way around a gallery. Like many other films in the genre of magical realism, Neshat’s creation weaves together the familiar, the uncanny, and the aesthetic, and the result is a work of art that is deeply moving. All four of the women transcend their environments and together they become an allegorical representation of the ways in which the male gaze oppresses women. And reciprocally, through each woman, we bear witness to the ways in which women fight back.

Neshat tackles the concepts of death as freedom, society’s definition of purity, the reduction of woman to her body, and the intellectual freedom of the independent woman. She invites viewers on a journey to investigate each theme through Munis, Faezeh, Zarin, and Fakhri. Remarkably, Neshat does this without succumbing to the temptation of an over-the-top, heavy-handed visual allegory.

Munis uses her death as power. Her brother cannot control her from beyond the grave, and the audience sees her resurrected with the power to participate politically and enter spaces in which she was not formerly welcome. Munis is our narrator, and through that role we see her freed from even the confines of the film, being the only character able to break the fourth wall. Munis establishes her agency when she closes the film speaking directly to the audience: “Death isn’t so hard. You only think it is… All that we wanted was to find a new form, a new way. Release.” Munis’s message–and Neshat’s–is that the concept of women’s freedom must be reframed. Munis’s independence lies not only in listening to the radio and going into male-dominated spaces; it is the power and the agency that she acquires when she takes her life, death, and resurrection into her own hands.

At the beginning of the film, Faezeh is adamant that her destiny lies in being a devout wife; her image of purity is tied closely to her virginity. When she is raped by two men from the town, she is plagued by painful memories and the knowledge that she has been irreversibly changed. It is through reclaiming her body in Fakhri’s sanctuary that she is able to transcend this suffering. Faezeh must remove herself from her everyday life in order to begin fully embracing herself, reiterating the independence and autonomy required to experience this kind of shift. Fakhri’s sanctuary gives Faezeh the space to explore herself without society pervading that exploration. Having been led there by Munis, with whom she has a profound connection, Faezeh is also an example to viewers of the power of two women working together for the betterment of their womanhood.

Zarin is the literal embodiment of the male gaze reducing woman to her body. This is especially true given the exclusively visual nature of her character: she does not speak throughout the film. Zarin’s fight takes a different form than those of the other women. In contrast to Faezeh’s life of religious modesty in which her body is constantly hidden, Zarin’s days are spent acting as an object of pleasure for paying customers. Her message is one of healing, in which she takes a journey away from the pain inflicted upon her by society, and replaces it with a kind of acceptance that she had not previously known. Zarin also represents the unity in adversity fostered by the women in the film, primarily Faezeh and Fakhri. For them, the silent Zarin provides spiritual and emotional healing. While, by the end, Zarin does not find bodily healing, we have already learned from Munis that bodily healing is not necessarily that which brings the most peace.

Fakhri makes the difficult decision to divorce her husband, who is a high ranking official in the Shah’s army. During such a politically turbulent time, Fakhri’s decision is seen as even bolder than it might have been without the surrounding social and political context. Her mystical orchard home is a safe haven for the women, and provides the physical space of escape in the film. The home is a liminal space, not connected with the politics or the societal turmoil until the very end. This space allows Fakhri to grow just as much as her counterparts. The last image we see of Fakhri is that of a woman who has finally carved out her space in a world dominated by men.

Shirin Neshat’s stark images and intense scenes largely ignore the chronological, placing much heavier emphasis on the allegorical. She powerfully highlights concepts of death, purity, physicality, and oppression in Women Without Men, inviting viewers into the art gallery that is this film. Not only does she show us the power of each woman by herself–she shows us the meaningful connections and small community that form within the confines of an oppressive society. Through each scene, Neshat paints a picture of the visceral feelings associated with witnessing the radical agency of women who do not operate according to the rules of men.

Women Without Men – An Allegory Falls Flat

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

Shirin Neshat, primarily known for her video installations and photography exploring gender issues in the Islamic world, forays outside familiar territory with Women Without Men (2009), her first feature-length film. Though born in Iran, she currently resides in New York, having been banned from entering Iran since 1996 due to her politically controversial photographs and experimental videos. Overly ambitious and ultimately unsuccessful, Women Without Men was originally envisioned by Neshat as a video installation. The film was loosely adapted from feminist writer Shahrnush Parsipur’s 1989 novel of the same name. This audacious debut feature looks back at the pivotal moment in 1953 when the progressive Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown. The Shah was then re-installed as dictator in a coup d’état engineered by the American and British governments. This film, which won Neshat the Silver Lion award for best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival, revolves around the lives of four women from different classes and backgrounds during this turbulent period in Iran’s history.

Representative of the expectations their society places on women, the four characters are largely cliché and their behavior often predictable. Munis (Shabnam Toloui), a serious woman obsessed with listening to the radio for reports on the Mossadegh situation and eager to participate in the street protests, refuses to limit herself to the circumscribed roles approved by her society and mandated by her tyrannical brother Amir Khan (Essa Zahir). In love with this brother who makes Munis’s life a misery, her conservative friend Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) is a timider woman. Emaciated prostitute Zarin (Orsolya Tóth) impulsively flees the brothel where she worked after the men’s faces start to blend together into a surreal blank. Lastly, Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad) is a stylish older woman unhappily married to the powerful General Sahri (Tahmoures Tehrani). After an old flame rolls into town she leaves her husband to live in a lovely country orchard where she encounters the other three women, who also arrive seeking refuge before the military coup intrudes on their peaceful idyll. Through these characters, the film celebrates women’s resilience and courage in the face of an oppressive, unyielding patriarchy that is present on personal, political and cultural levels.

While each of these women represents an aspect of what their country expects women to be, they simultaneously buck these roles, which gives them a presence greater than that of simple flesh-and-blood. Munis is desperate to take an active role in the politics of her nation, to affect change, but is forbidden by her fundamentalist brother to set foot outside the house or act other than the demure woman he expects her to be. Zarin is abused daily by men in the brothel as her only way to survive and get by, eventually leading her to flee to a women’s public bath where she scrubs herself bloody in an attempt to feel clean of their touch. Fakhri is reviled by her husband because she is menopausal and no longer sexually desirable to him; when her former lover returns she runs away with him to the orchard. These women come together in the almost magical orchard after their travails to form a family, cementing the importance of freedom and working together to attain it.

The director’s instincts as a photographer are evident in every frame of Women Without Men. The treatment of light to contrast with shadow and the expert use of color to paint each scene with rich, shifting hues creates a realistic view of the world that is still, at some level, magical.  The precise compositions of each shot present alternately troubled and serene landscapes, which contribute to the almost fantastical atmosphere of the movie. In contrast to the lush color palette of the orchard scenes, the scenes taking place in Tehran (re-created in Morocco) are muted and monochromatic-more like a newsreel. Each frame in the film appears carefully composed and it gives Women Without Men the ambience of an exhibition whose figures have come to life, like Pygmalion’s Galatea, to act out this tragic feminist allegory.

It’s more than just the composition and palette of each frame that lends the film its fantastical quality—it’s the surrealistic elements as well. This is especially evident when Zarin looks up at a client’s face and sees that it is completely featureless; this initiates the breakdown that ultimately leads her to leave the brothel. The orchard is another of these surreal elements. Purchased by Fakhri it is clearly located in the real world, but its representation gives it more the feel of a dream space set apart from reality–sometimes menacing, sometimes divine.

Both the original writer and the director have been persecuted by the country of their birth because of their beliefs. Women Without Men allows viewers to feel their emotions—and through them those of the women still held down by the men in their lives—and desire to be free and true to themselves in these characters. These performances are successful largely due to the skill of their actresses in achieving the right level of emotional intensity in each scene: Shahrzad’s portrayal of her character’s dissatisfaction and desperate desire to maintain sexual and social confidence, Tóth’s display of fierce intensity, Tolouei’s depiction of pride and deep-seated melancholy.

The actresses’ portrayals are especially important given Neshat’s lack of experience with extended narrative. While her compositions are arresting, the narrative sometimes fails to pack much punch. The film feels awkward and overloaded and, despite decent performances by the actors, the viewer never gets to know their characters. Ultimately this results in the emotional impact of their respective fates falling flat and somewhat predictable. Neshat bit off more than she could chew in this ambitious debut with its heavy socio-political and cultural commentary. Nevertheless, her film is worth watching for its message, striking imagery, and distinct blend of realism and imagination in the service of an affecting feminist message.

Exploring the Meaning of Freedom

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

It’s hard to reconcile the masterful cinematography with the subject matter of Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men. There is a magical quality about the filming, something that fits in with the film’s central theme of freedom, and Neshat’s artful shots, each frame itself a photograph, almost seem out of place in such a violent setting.

The film takes place in 1953 in Tehran, Iran, during the Anglo-American-backed coup d’état that overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh’s democratically-elected government and restored the Shah as dictator. The narrative begins with Munis (Shabnam Tolouei), a thirty-year-old woman who is trapped in her home by her fundamentalist brother. The opening scene shows her suicide, taking place directly after her brother unplugs her radio—her only connection to the world outside the walls of the house. Instead of mourning her, her brother curses her for disgracing him and buries her in their garden.

Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), a friend of Munis’s, discovers her body. She secretly wishes to marry Munis’s brother, and when she learns of his marriage to another woman, she seeks the help of a seer to ensure that the marriage fails. Instead, she hears Munis call out to her when she is in the family’s garden; when Faezeh digs through the dirt, Munis returns to live a double life as an independent woman, protesting against the planned coup d’état against Mossadegh.

Zarin (Orsi Toth) is a prostitute. So many men have abused her body that it becomes impossible for her to tell one from the next, and she flees the brothel when she sees that her last customer is seemingly faceless. The next time she is on screen, she tries to wash the marks of these men from her body; it is a painful thing to watch because these marks are indelible, and no matter how hard she scrubs, even leaving her skin raw and bloody, they will never disappear. It is only by leaving Tehran and the men who hurt her that Zarin breaks free from the loveless caresses that haunt her.

Finally we meet Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad), a wealthy woman married to a war general. Following the arrival of an old flame, Fakhri leaves her husband and purchases a villa at the edge of town. This villa becomes her refuge—and in turn becomes a safe haven for Faezeh and Zarin, who eventually arrive at Fakhri’s door. Here, the three women help each other heal from the invisible injuries men have left on them. In this newfound freedom, they can live their lives undisturbed by men. Together, they take care of each other without fear of saying or doing something wrong; Neshat seems to be telling us that they understand each other in a way that a man never could. Meanwhile, Munis is free to pursue her desire to not only interact with the world beyond her radio, but become an activist herself and fight for what she believes in.

Each shot and frame of the film is ethereal, reflecting the surrealistic nature of the cinematography. It is a unique contrast that both invites the user to question the reality of the film and decide for themselves what hidden message each scene might contain. But in keeping with this artful, ever-shifting style, the peace at the villa and Munis’s activism do not last. When Fakhri announces that she is going to throw a party to celebrate the opening of the orchard in which the villa is located, Zarin falls ill; meanwhile, the coup begins in earnest, and Munis watches helplessly as the leadership of the protest fractures after the capture of one of the key activists.

The party and the crumbling of the protest unfold in tandem as the film progresses. At first it seems odd that the two events happen together, but they are linked the moment that a woman voices her distaste for the Shah at the party. Suddenly the viewer is reminded of the coup and the ensuing rebellion, and not long afterwards the Shah’s men arrive at the villa’s door, searching for one of the activists. This marks the end of resistance as their leaders scatter and Munis mourns the freedom that could have been. When Fakhri walks around in her empty villa the next morning, it dawns on her that that party was perhaps the last moment of freedom for Tehran and its citizens.

That Neshat’s work is forbidden in Iran, as is the novel, a magic-realistic book written by Shahrnush Parsipur, that the film is based upon, creates another tension with the film’s central theme of freedom. Women Without Men is a self-explanatory title that explores the possibility of freedom—a place where women can dictate their own lives in any way they choose—in an environment where there is no way to win. Perhaps it is a reflection of how Neshat sees the world today, or perhaps it is a call to arms to fight for the freedom she shows us in the film. Whatever the case, Neshat’s love for Iran is apparent at every turn, and her artful depiction of freedom and what it means to women is central to each frame, surreal and real.