Women without Men.

So last weekend, I watched 'Women without Men', the title may sound feminist and of that kind, but well, basically, more like breaking out from the rule of men. It's a film by Shirin Neshat, focusing primarily on 4 women, Munis, Faezah, Fakhri and Zareen.

Munis's story? Her brother keeps oppressing her. He wants her to get married, while she doesn't want to. He keeps her at home, forbidding her from going out of the house, while she really wants to raise a voice and be a part of the struggle going on in Tehran, supporting Dr.Mosaddegh as their Prime Minister, in revolt to the Britishers taking over them. And then, there's more to it, which I won't disclose, considering some of you would like to actually watch the movie or read the book by Shahrnush Parsipur.

But well, a quote by her, "Now there was only silence, and nothing else, and I think the only way to be freed from pain is to be freed from the world."

Faezah, well, she was in love with Munis's brother who got married to Pravin or Parveen..nonetheless, Faezah suffers from sexual abuse and Munis guides her out of the town to Fakhri's orchard, who comes across Fakhri and starts staying with her. But then, at this party, Munis's brother shows up and proposes Fakhri to allegedly marry him and consider Pravin her servant (and Pravin's with a child), so well, Faezah refuses saying,  "And perhaps when you get tired of me, I will serve your third wife".

Fakhri's a military general's 50yr old wife, who loved another military person who just returned to Tehran. She suffered from verbal abuse from her husband and she decides to leave him. She, while examining the villa and the orchard, finds Zareen lying in the lake. The caretaker rushes in to carry Zareen to the inside of the villa where Fakhri starts taking care of her as a mother. She feeds her, looks after her, talks to her and then Faezah visits.

Now, to consider Zareen, who was a prostitute, and from the look of her character, perhaps mentally ill, after all these years of abuse, she finally runs away. So, well, she walks a dirt road that leads to the orchard where she's found by Fakhri. Her character's pretty intense, even though I don't remember her uttering even a single word all through the movie.

My favorite quote from the movie,

"Death is not difficult. It is imagining it that is difficult. It seems that what we were all looking for, was finding a new shape, a new way towards freedom."

P.S. If anybody has the pdf file to the book, please let me know. I have been looking.