Two Women

Post is in regards to "Two Women", directed by Tahmineh Milani

This movie tells a moving tell about the plight of women in Iran. These two women meet at college and create a tight sisterhood. Both are well educated, wanting to return to University. At this time, they are close due to conflicts revolving around the Iranian Revolution. Roya is a smart, middle class girl from Tehran. Fereshteh is brilliant student who is from a small town, but is working hard to afford her education in the big city.

The fun for this girl click is that Fereshteh can't shake the advances of men. One in particular, Hassan, begins to stalk her. As much as the girls try to get him to leave Fereshteh alone, he becomes more demanding that she be his. In one event, he tries to defile her with acid to make her unsuitable for no one else, but ends up hitting her cousin instead. Because the authorities are called to intervene, Fereshteh's father travels to Tehran to collect his daughter who has completely disgraced him. As if she was the one to cause this catastrophe.

When she flees the capital, she hopes that he would disappear...but he ends up finding her and sends her on a wild car chase that ends up injuring and killing children in the street. Again, her father screams at her, saying that sending her to school was the worse thing he ever did. He repeats that she is a disgrace and locks her in a storage closet until her trial. Because of upcoming expenditures, another suitor, Ahmad, comes into the picture. He has offered to marry her three times and she has said no. Now that she is in a financial bind, he convinces her father to promise her hand in marriage in exchange for payment of all expenses.

The trial sends Hassan to jail for 13 years for killing the one child, and Fereshteh gets off relatively easy...but is turned over to the hands of Ahmad. Fereshteh protests the proposal, but soon their parents eventually convince her that there is no other option. Fereshteh tries to make the best of it, hoping to make a life for them. But, Ahmad's jealousy locks Fereshteh into a submissive hell. He refuses to let Fereshteh interact with Roya, he won't even let her out of the house to see her own family. Two kids latter, and Fereshteh seems to have lost all hope of the life she once wanted for herself.

Roya on the other hand ends up graduating and joining an architechture firm. She marries the love of her life, and she is powerful and prosperous. She receives a phone call from her old friend asking for her aid. She is at the hospital, where Ahmad is gravely ill. As they reconnect, Fereshteh tells her the story, which ends with Hassan getting out of jail and stalking her again in hopes of killing her. Ahmad and Fereshteh get in a horrible fight, where she finally storms out of the house. Fereshteh knows that Hassan is around, but she doesn't care.

Fereshteh runs, Ahmad is hot on her trail, but at some point she loses him. Just when she sits to collect her breath, Hassan comes after her. She continues to run until she becomes trapped in an alley. Realizing there is no escape, she collapses on the ground and tells Hassan to kill her. Ahmad shows up and beats Hassan with a stick, but it becomes clear that he is in the hospital because the knife wounds from Hassan have subdued him.

So, as I put this DVD in (available via Net Flix), the first thing you hear is Arabic (I think) promoting other films at irmovies.com. It is a little intimidating. I don't know why....but it was a little scary. The movie starts showing Roya as an adult. She was powerful, at a construction site, managing men. Something I was initially intrigued with. The movie than goes into the girls introduction at school. The classroom was mixed, and the instructor seemed very respectful of his female students. There is a montage of the girls learning English and Math, but you could see Fereshteh a little uncomfortable around certain men. Matter of fact, this movie is about women...but you really don't see a ton in this movie. The streets are filled with men, and there are several scuffles...related to the political climate at that point. Another interesting thing is they show Fereshteh and Roya cheating on a test, and it doesn't get either of them in trouble.

The scenes with Hassan are troubling. He will not back down, unless the girls can get a hold of other men who finally run him off. The police are viewed as not something you want to be involved with. Later, through her father, you realize that employing their help is cause for disgrace. So who should protect her? The father is incredibly scary at first. He screams at Fereshteh and blames her for so much. He curses her forwardness and sees education as almost corrupting her.

When Fereshteh leaves Roja and Tehran, she leaves what little freedom she knew. In the town she was going, no woman was educated and the phone was seen as corruption for the young. When Hassan is finally jailed, Fereshteh is placed into another jealous man's hands. During the proposal meeting, she is not given a voice. Her father is eager to give her away, seeing her as trouble and a disgrace.

Quickly you learn that Ahmad is very suspicious of Fereshteh. He wants to conquer her. Her desires to talk to Roja and go to school are quickly seen as ways for her to get with another man. He is so jealous that he almost murders a man for looking at his wife. At this point, Fereshteh's father begins to actually stick up for her. He tells Ahmad that he gave him a wife, not a slave. Fereshteh tell's her father if you really care for her, you would let her divorce Ahmad. So, her father actually takes Fereshteh to the authorities to plee for a divorce.

In this seen, the official asks: Does he pay the bills? Does he drink alcohol? Does he hang around bad/corrupt people? Does he beat you? Fereshteh answers no, but states that he is emotionally abusive, locks her in her house, entraps her, kills her spirit. the official states that there is no cause for a divorce. She is human, doesn't she deserve to be treated with dignity and respect? The official replies that she is wasting the court's time.

Shortly after, she finds she is pregnant and is horrified by this forced motherhood. She didn't want to be married, or with child. She had dreams, ambition, a future...but now she is forced to take care of her family. Killing her. In the finally seen, when she tries to escape but finds herself trapped by Hassan, she pleads for her death. "I've had it with a lifetime of threats, insults, humiliation."

At the end of the movie, you can see Roja completely destroyed after hearing her friend's story. A call confirms Ahmad is dead, and Fereshteh is almost stunned at her predicament. Roya asks what her friend would do now, and Roya's husband responds, "live." To Fereshteh, it is not that easy. She does not know if she remembers how to live. "I feel strange, like a free bird that has no wings."

Funny, during that chase scene at the end...there was absolutely no one in the streets of Fereshteh's town but Ahmad and Hassan. It symbolizes what her life was to that point. She was entrapped by her society, her father, this stalker and her husband. They all seem to want to deny her humanity. Subdue her. Force her to fit their conventions. Of course, she can not live in this world, and has to almost kill herself to become free.

Sorry again for bringing in another class, but we have been reading Little Women in my Adolescent Literature class. Some critics of this novel suggest that Louisa May Alcott kills Jo much the same way. In order for her to "grow up" and be the perfect "little woman" she has to give up her own ambitions and submit the the industry of caring for others in the way society demands. So, one can say that even in America...this same sort of cultural expectation or demand on women exists.

Still, the male dominate culture of Iran makes it almost impossible to free women out of these types of bonds. Women are completely second class citizens. Fereshteh even mentions at the end that she didn't even know if she would still get her children after her husband's death. That they might be taken to their paternal grandfather or uncle for raising. The murdering of the human spirit is criminal and a universal tragedy no matter what gender, race, or type of person you are.

This movie is impactful, but could be scary for children and some teens. It was a powerful statement that deserves to be heard. I am happy that it did show that there are some women who have thrived like Roja, but I ache for the other Fereshteh's that have no voice.