Love Crimes Of Kabul Summary

Documentary

Love Crimes of Kabul
Director: Tanaz Eshaghian

Reviewed By: Fatemeh Fathzadeh Date: January 2013

About the director Iranian-American documentary filmmaker, Tanaz Eshaghian, usually explores the deeprooted ambivalence in Iranian culture and society towards love, women and sexuality. This is shown in her documentaries such as “Be Like Others” and “Love Iranian-American Style.” In her documentary, “Love Crimes of Kabul,” she steps further and tries to examine the very same issues in the neighboring country, Afghanistan. “Love Crimes of Kabul” follows the story of three headstrong, “liberated” young women, named Kareema, Sabereh and Aleema. They have been convicted of “moral crimes” and incarcerated at Afghanistan’s Badum
Even the possibility of having sex can lead to harassment and severe punishment. For instance, it is proved that Sabereh’s hymen is intact. However, she is charged with the “possibility of having committing sodomy.” Similarly, Aleema is a divorced woman without a hymen and there is no way to determine if she has committed sex; nevertheless, as one of the jailers argued, “Running away from home is usually concurrent with fornication.” In most other societies, her lawyer would have voiced a strenuous objection to this statement during the trial. Watching the first stages of the documentary, you might note how the women were laughing, having fun and being happy in the prison while forgetting all about the harshness of the reality surrounding them. Unbelievably, Kareema was not caught and turned in by outsiders or relatives, but rather went to the authorities and turned herself in. This raises the questions of why Kareema seeks a forced-marriage with someone who does not like her and why such contradictory behaviours occur. Although they challenged the cultural norms, they also supported their cultural norms in another way. In a society where the identity of women is usually shaped by marriage, even prison can be a means to attain that ultimate goal that is taught and internalized in these women by their oppressive society. This motivation is also quite obvious by the value they give to the money they have to receive as dowry. They consider
Besides Zia who is involved in Aleema’s story, forty-five year old Naseema is a secondary character in the documentary. She is charged with the murder of her husband. She is from the other half of the prisoners on which the story does not focus. It appears that she has been so brave that the director could not leave her out. However, she has been asked if those girls are guilty and she strongly answers, “Yes.” Her reasoning is that “they haven’t obeyed the rules and law of Islam.” She has fallen into the trap of Afghan patriarchy. As maintained by Padilla, patterns of internalized racism cause adults to find fault, criticize and invalidate each other. This invariably happens in many scenes in the documentary. For instance, Firuz’s mother strongly disapproves of Kareema and her reasoning is that “everyone must stick with her people.” She encourages and supports her son in his refusal to love Kareema. It escalates to the point where the jail officer says, “The prison is so full! It was not like this before. It’s because these days women are given too much freedom.” Moreover, this bias appears in the conversations between Zia and Aleema, when she tries to pressure Aleema by saying that she owes her and must marry her son. She claims that she has been disregarded and imprisoned because of Aleema. At one point, she confronts Aleema and says if Aleema were to marry