Women Without Men (2009 film)
| Women Without Men | |
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| Directed by |
Shirin Neshat Shoja Azari |
| Produced by |
Shoja Azari Philippe Bober Jerome de Noirmont Barbara Gladstone Martin Gschlacht Isabell Wiegand Manfred Zurhorst |
| Written by |
Shoja Azari Shirin Neshat Steven Henry Madoff Shahrnush Parsipur (novel) |
| Starring |
Shabnam Tolouei Pegah Ferydoni Arita Shahrzad Orsolya Tóth Mehdi Moinzadeh Navíd Akhavan Mina Azarian Bijan Daneshmand |
| Music by | Ryûichi Sakamoto |
| Cinematography | Martin Gschlacht |
| Edited by | George Cragg, Patrick Lambertz, Jay Rabinowitz, Christof Schertenleib, Julia Wiedwald |
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Release date
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Running time
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95 minutes |
| Country | Germany Austria France |
Women Without Men is a 2009 film adaptation of a Shahrnush Parsipur novel, directed by Shirin Neshat.
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and photographer whose work explores gender issues in the Islamic world. Women without Men is Neshat's first dramatic feature. Neshat, banned from even visiting Iran since 1996, lives and works in New York City. Neshat left Iran in 1974, just before the Islamic Revolution that drove the Shah into exile.
The film profiles the lives of four women living in Tehran in 1953, during the American-backed coup that returned the Shah of Iran to power. The film was called "visually transfixing" by the New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden, who added, "the film surpasses even Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon in the fierce beauty and precision of its cinematography (by Martin Gschlacht)." Two of the film’s recurrent images are of a long dirt road extending to the horizon on which the characters walk, and a river that suggests, "a deep current of feminine resilience below an impassive exterior."
Women Without Men was filmed in Morocco, with Casablanca standing in for Tehran, Iran. The film originated as a video installation by the filmmaker/artist, Shirin Neshat.
The film begins with the sound of Adhaan. A woman is standing on the rooftop contemplating jumping. She jumps in slow motion. Flashback. Munes does not want a husband. Her tyrannical brother, Amir Khan, wants Munes to prepare for a visiting suitor and demands that she cook dinner for them. When she scoffs at the idea, he gets angry, and threatens that if she leaves the house he will break her legs.
Protests fill the street. People are chanting "Durood bar Mosaddegh, marg bar Englis" ("Long live Mosaddegh, Death to Britain"). A second woman, the religiously observant Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), joins Munes and they discuss the protests. Faezeh calls the protestors "a bunch of ne'r do wells". Munes suggests that they themselves should be outside protesting. Faezeh, who secretly longs to marry Munes' brother, asks if it is true that he is getting married to someone else. Munes nods her head, yes.
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