A Country Fighting For Its Freedom

Women Without Men - Trailer from IndiePix on Vimeo.

Lauren Collins reviews Iranian film maker Shirin Neshat's "Women Without Men":

The world is a different place than it was three years ago, especially in the eyes of Iranians and those who care what happens to them. Neshat used to say that she was not a political artist, or, for that matter, an especially political person. The events following last summer’s contested election in Iran changed that. Neshat organized hunger strikes by mass e-mail. She and the cast of “Women Without Men” wore bright green on the red carpet in Venice, and flashed the V-sign. Neshat’s film begins with an image of a suicide: a girl named Munis, forbidden by a devout brother to leave the family compound, jumps off the roof, her shirtwaist billowing against a blue sky. She floats to the ground like a feather, landing on her back. Munis, for Neshat, became a Neda. The film was done by June of last summer, but, at the end, Neshat added a message:

This film is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Iran, from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Green Movement in 2009.

Earlier coverage of Neshat here.