The Day I Became a Woman
It is a rare movie that puts me to sleep twice. I first went to see The Day I Became a Woman in Tehran when it debuted, and promptly snoozed off during the interminable, irritating first segment of the triptych. I attempted the film once again last week, having forgotten in the intervening years just how disappointing and soporific it was. I’ve been perpetually meaning to write a long piece about how such films — produced with the naked and sole objective of getting attention at internatinal film festivals — are viewed in Iran, but all the wars and political turmoil conspire to get in my way. Visually, this film is gorgeous, and I think Ms. Meshkini would have done well to have produced some sort of photography exhibit of stills rather than a feature film. The Tehran cinema where I saw it the first time around was nearly empty, and the group of Iranians I watched it with last week uniformly suggested we watch a Bollywood film instead. Composed with the icy precision of an interior decorator, The Day I Became a Woman captures scarcely anything of contemporary Iranian reality, and is a jumble of exotic scenes designed for the European palate. Snore. One should stick to Kiarostami, va salam.
Your Tehran Social Fly on the Wall
At a recent grand fete thrown by the ambassador of a prominent European nation, Iranian guests mingled with foreigners and both munched on tartlets and sipped fruit juice. A crowd began to gather around one particular Iranian male, who reluctantly began signing autographs. The Europeans did not recognize him and began whispering amongst themselves as to who he might be. A footballist? A pop star? They dispatched a Lebanese friend (wily Europeans sending an Oriental emissary) to discern the cause of his celebrity. ‘So just who are you, and why is everyone taking your picture?’ she asked him. The mystery man adjusted his lapels, and tried not to look offended at this astonishing display of ignorance. ‘Perhaps it is because I am an ACTOR,’ he said, turning to his devoted crowd. So who was he? My friends, he was no less than Mohammed Reza Golzar, the famous Iranian ACTOR. The Europeans concluded his features were too perfect and thus made him too classically beautiful to be actually attractive. The Iranians did not share this view and thronged him throughout the evening.