Women Without Men

The screening began with a brief discussion by Guilan Siassi, a language professor at USC. She provided historical backstory for the film, mentioning specifically the 1953 coup (which I will discuss later) in Iran. Siassi also explained that the film, an adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same name, was made in the magical realist style, which has a strong historical component and presumes that viewers have a bond with the history and culture of the characters in any given picture. Before the film began, Siassi specifically urged the audience to pay attention to the themes of patriarchy and imperialism. “The fate of the women and the fate of the Motherland [Iran] are intertwined,” she said. “Women Without Men” tells the story of four Iranian women, set against the backdrop of the Mosaddegh protests and Britain’s denouncement of the Prime Minister’s (Mohammad Mosaddegh) government. Mosaddegh, despite being politically progressive and appointed in a legitimate fashion as the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, was removed from power after a coup orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence — at the behest of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower. The four women featured in the film are: Munes, a suicidal young woman with an abusive brother named Amir; Faezeh, a very religious girl who is in love with Amir and later raped by two men; Zarrin, a prostitute suffering from malnourishment who escapes the brothel she works in; and Fakhri, an older woman who leaves a forlorn marriage after her husbands proclaims he has the right to claim another wife if he is unhappy. Of the four, Fakhri is the most Westernized in her style and manner. The four women, from entirely different backgrounds, come together in a countryside orchard house, and the difference in their characters accentuates the single-story modern stereotype placed on Iranian women. Although the film initially seems to only be an upfront commentary on the role of women in Iranian society in the early 1950s, the discussion’s backstory on Mosaddegh helped highlight the importance of the political scene as well. The women, like other Iranian citizens, were collateral in the West’s interference in their home country, the ramifications of imperialism continuing to play themselves out, even today. To say that the coup was over oil would be an oversimplification, but Mosaddegh’s plans included securing national control over this resource, which did not sit well with the Churchill-led British government. In retrospect, the background information allowed me to analyze the film in a different light.
In a way, Faezeh’s rape in the movie seems to symbolize the rape of Iran itself by Western powers: Faezeh represents Iran, while her two perpetrators represent Britain and the United States. In a way, all four women are symbolic of their Motherland. Zarrin, like her country, is used as a tool for the pleasure and goals of others; Fakhri, the most Western of the women, reflects the powerful influence of Western culture; Munes, after being buried alive by her brother, manages to dig her way out, with Faezeh’s help, instilling a sense of hope in viewers by stipulating that, no matter how much Iran is bullied by Western powers, it will always find a way to
survive.

The film was directed by Shirin Neshat. Renee Almassizadeh, a program assistant for the Muddle East Studies Program, said that, although Neshat is in Morocco working on a film about Umm Kulthum, she will be visiting USC in April 2017, and will either screen “Women Without Men” or a preview of her film on Kulthum.