Unwanted Woman

Tahmineh Milani’s Unwanted Woman is “Zane Ziadi” in Persian, which could also be translated “Extra Woman” or “Spare Woman” or even (more loosely) “Too Many Women.” Any of these translations gets the message of the film across: there’s a woman in this film that is despised by her husband in favor of his new mistress, though as the film progresses it becomes clearer that the director is suggesting perhaps every Iranian woman has a history of “unwantedness.” That is, the film points to a systematic, socially-ingrained mental breaking of females at work in post-revolutionary Iran, one that makes them the victims - as opposed to agents - of their lives. Women’s voices are routinely silenced, to the detriment of both men and women. This may not be a new message, and it’s not one unique to Iranians, as it’s pretty clear by now that every system or government or religion that disrespects the humanity of its members by disallowing them their basic human freedoms is breaking their spirits. But it’s still happening in Iran and many other places, it’s a relevant message, and films are a good way not to forget it.

The first Tahmineh Milani film we mentioned briefly, Two Women, also has strong themes of sexual politics, the most prominent being women struggling to come out from under the thumbs of the men that rule them; it works because we see the contrasting lives of a woman allowed basic freedoms by her family, and one who is not. In Unwanted Woman, the wife elbows her way into her husband’s trip to the mountains with his mistress to protect him from police (it’s not entirely legal in Iran to travel one-on-one with non-relatives of the opposite sex), during which he constantly humiliates her, and later she overhears him saying to the mistress, “Just say the word and I’ll kick my wife to the curb, I’ll leave her for you.” But I think that more than being about female subjugation, both these films celebrate the strength of Iranian women in the midst of difficult circumstances and, more important, their strength in numbers.

In Two Women, the character Fereshteh, who begins the film as a star student and tutor and then is stalked, forced to quit her education, forced to marry, and then oppressed at home by her husband, finds refuge by reconnecting to her friend Roya, who was her university classmate at the start of the film. Roya finished school, become an architect, and married a man she loved. By the end, it’s clear that Roya feels the pain of Fereshteh’s life, perhaps knowing full well that it could have been her, and Roya becomes the catalyst, the promise of hope, for Fereshteh’s fresh start. In Unwanted Woman, Sima (who played Roya in Two Women), is the wife and Saba, the mistress. They begin the film naturally polarized but both come to see their similarites (through some crazy plot twists) and give each other the strength to leave Sima’s husband.

So there’s the bigger take-away: there’s power in community and the only real way to effect change is to band together. At least, it’s far more constructive than merely lamenting a system that doesn’t work without working actively towards solutions. So hats off to Tahmineh Milani, feminist Iranian problem-solver. Now if only we can find a way for life to imitate art.

Persepolis, the Movie

Persepolis, based on the award-winning graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, is coming out sometime this year. We’re predicting this will be a really good thing for the young Iranian diaspora as far as raising our profile as a community. And who wants to explain the 1979 revolution, and all its tangled roots, over and over again? Not us, so this will really help.

Satrapi’s Persepolis movie blog reads how she speaks (we wrote about seeing her at UCLA in this post about her latest book), but there are only two posts, and the last was written in October (oops). I’m confident the very clean animation and popularity of the books will draw huge audiences. And according to the movie’s IMDB page, French actress Catherine Deneuve is the voice of Marjane’s mother, and Gena Rowlands is involved as the voice of the grandmother.

Forough Farrokhzad

Had she not died in a car accident 40 years ago, Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad would have turned 72 years old last week. Farrokhzad was the Sylvia Plath of Iran: beautiful, depressed, unconventional, feminist, and she died very young, though not of suicide. Married in her late teens, she had a baby and got divorced by nineteen, and her first book of poems, Asir, which means “Captive,” was published when she was twenty. She also had a nervous breakdown that year, and was briefly institutionalized. Farrokhzad wrote several other books, though unfortunately it’s really hard to find them, not to mention finding translations. But I think a collection of her poems in Persian, with their straightforward language, would be worth struggling through with middling Persian-reading skills.

Farrokhzad’s poetry marked a paradigm-shift in Iranian verse. In her essay, Unveiling the Other, Farzaneh Milani writes that it’s part of “a [new mid-20th century] tradition of women intensely involved in self-reflection and self-revelation, not sheltered or restrained by the anonymity or opacity of a veil; a tradition of women who not only revealed themselves but also unveiled men in their writings.” It sounds a little like blogging, sans Internet. Forough (which is also spelled Forugh Farrokhzad, Forugh Farokhzad, Furugh Farrukhzad, and etc., in case anyone wants to do more research on her) also wrote and directed a documentary about leprosy entitled “Khaneh Siah Ast,” or “The House is Black.” And this doesn’t really have anything to do with her art, but her look is so prototypically Iranian, especially in this photo - gorgeous dark hair and eyes, and pretty, expressive eyebrows.

Like so many figures that die young, Farrokhzad became a cultural icon. There are some English translations and audio clips, among many fan sites. I think it definitely adds to her popularity that she also lived a very sexually uninhibited life that included affairs with Iranian literati, including Ebrahim Golestan. Her Myspace page has a pretty racy photo on it, too, though I don’t know for sure if that’s her.

And on that note, here’s the poem “Gonah” (”The Sin”), which I found on the Iran Chamber website. Not sure who translated this, but I think it’s a beautiful poem:

The Sin [ Gonah ]

I sinned a sin full of pleasure,
In an embrace which was warm and fiery.
I sinned surrounded by arms
that were hot and avenging and iron.

In that dark and silent seclusion
I looked into his secret-full eyes.
my heart impatiently shook in my breast
In response to the request of his needful eyes.

In that dark and silent seclusion,
I sat dishevelled at his side.
his lips poured passion on my lips,
I escaped from the sorrow of my crazed heart.

I whispered in his ear the tale of love:
I want you, O life of mine,
I want you, O life-giving embrace,
O crazed lover of mine, you.

desire sparked a flame in his eyes;
the red wine danced in the cup.
In the soft bed, my body
drunkenly quivered on his chest.

I sinned a sin full of pleasure,
next to a shaking, stupefied form.
O God, who knows what I did
In that dark and quiet seclusion.

MUSE Cards by Nooshin Navidi

I might be the least sentimental person on the planet because I throw away all cards unless they’re really cool-looking. My good friend Sam gave me this awesome card for Christmas a couple of weeks ago which I’ve now got up in my room to remind me of home. Sam is an engineer and one of the most creative people I know, and a gift from him is always accompanied by a card made of pretty paper that’s been folded into some beautiful configuration, impossible to reproduce unless you have a background in origami or industrial design, preferably both (needless to say, his cards never went in the trash). This year’s card was a departure from the past but lovely nonetheless, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that it’s actually from a line designed by his cousin, Nooshin Navidi of MUSE Cards. Some things just run in families, as Nooshin has a pretty diverse art background (silversmithing and gilding among graphic design and illustration, for example) and her cards are really professional. The graphic above is actually just part of my card, which came on nice, heavy black stock and opened up like a reporter’s notebook (as opposed to left-to-right, like a regular card). It’s called the “Instant California” card from the “Instant Infusions” line, which, as you can see, is a “teabag” filled with trinkets. I’m pretty fond of the whole travel line of the “Infusions”. I think it’d be really funny if MUSE did an “Instant Infusion” for Tehran - my choice of trinkets in that one would be tiny versions of a samovar, a book of Hafez, a Persian rug, and a backgammon board. Too bad there’s no good physical representation for taarof, because I can’t think of anything more Iranian than that (and granted, both tea and samovars are Russian inventions but Persians are massive tea snobs).

The short of it is these cards are pretty charming, and mine’s making me miss the beach and sunshine. MUSE doesn’t have e-commerce on the site yet, but you can buy the cards from the MUSE catalog.

The BBC’s Iran Coverage

We’ve been quite media-heavy on ParsArts.com lately, but we thought we’d be remiss not to highlight the BBC’s Inside Iran portal, just in case anyone has not seen it yet. Of special interest is the Iran: Life in the Diaspora story, as is today’s feature, Huge cost of Iranian brain drain. According to the article, “A year ago, the International Monetary Fund said Iran had the highest rate of brain drain of 90 countries it measured.” Not sure what factors were used to measure this but we’ve been hearing our parents talk about the great brain drain for years now. It’s likely that the influx of Iranians to the U.S. and other countries is not likely to slow down, much less cease, and Iranians need a better community to support new members of the diaspora. It’s a difficult transition. For (somewhat) lighter reading, check out their recent story Iran police move into fashion business, about Iran’s first post-revolution fashion show.

For fellow news-junkies, there’s Yahoo’s Iran page as well. (And FYI, the photo of the sign is from the BBC website, taken by someone on their Tehran commute. It’s an advertisement for rose essence, which apparently “cures depression and restores sexual desire.”)

Monday Edition: Pars Links

Happy Monday. Here are some Iranian-related stories from around the blogosphere:

Persian McMansions
LA Times readers respond to Greg Goldin’s December 17, 2006 story about Persian mansions in Beverly Hills and beyond, In Defense of the Persian Palace. The first letter starts “Beverly Hills is a very diverse community,” which is perhaps as deluded as the showy houses. Check out the photo essay.

Diaspora Memoir
Davar Ardalan’s My Name is Iran: A Memoir comes out on Tuesday, and Michiko Kakutani, the scariest person at the New York Times, wrote a slightly scathing review. TC Boyle, a former professor of mine, famously called Kakutani “one bitter, acerbic individual who’s miserable with her bleak reviewer’s life”, so we’re going to read this book ourselves and let you know what we think.

Maz Jobrani on TV, on the Internet
If you missed Maz Jobrani in The Knights of Prosperity this Wednesday night, you can catch the episode for free on the ABC website, in addition to all the past season’s episodes for their other primetime shows. I’m obviously biased but I think Maz is the best one of the lot in his show, and thankfully there’s no laugh track. Can’t say much else for it.

Films in Farsi
The Noor Film Festival opens in Los Angeles on February 1st, with a pre-party on January 27th. No list of their shorts yet, but they’re showing America So Beautiful a 2001 film by Babak Shokrian, and 2005’s Cafe Transit, which looks really good but unfortunately isn’t on Netflix.

Blog Free or Die
IranMania reports that rules for blogs in Iran are being eased. Hossein Derakhshan has a different take. The Iranian government wants all Iranian websites registered here and will filter out all others. I don’t understand how this eases restrictions - it appears to be quite the opposite, actually.

Speaking Our Language
The International Journalists’ Network has added a Persian-language section to their site, which “will help Persian speaking journalists, media managers, and media NGOs professionals- specifically those in Iran- access a wide range of media related news, developments and training opportunities in their native language.”

Iran Articles in the LA Weekly

My old hometown weekly has four excellent feature stories about Iran, Iranians, and Tehrangeles this week. The photo above belongs to a photo essay by Teun Voeten called This is Iran, Too, which shows how un-Ahmadinejad Iran and Iranians really are. I’m also very excited about Mehammed Mack’s story, In Search of Home, in which he profiles three very different Iranian families in LA and their pre- and post-revolution lives. Mack is a great writer and I always read his LA Weekly stuff, though I wish he had talked to some recent immigrants, too: It would be nice to have some more socioeconomic diversity in Iranian diaspora coverage in the press, as most profiles focus on those who came here shortly after the revolution and are thriving financially, and that’s a very incomplete picture. For every BMW-driving Iranian living in Beverly Hills, there’s one working at a grocery store and living in a low-rent apartment a bad neighborhood in the Valley, and people don’t know this about Iranians. Maybe they should, because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Regardless, I see the pre- and post-revolution contrast as a pretty important thread tying the three profiles together, and it’s a good piece that I wish I’d written.

Nazanin Arandi wrote a piece called The Pencil Revolution about graphic artist Reza Abedini, using his work to illustrate the search for Iranian identity. His poster for a Sepideh Farsi film is pictured here. I’m so proud of all the amazing graphic design coming from Iran and Iranians these days. We have a history steeped in calligraphy and art so it’s a natural extension, I think - calligraphy is really just an expression of typography, after all, and typography is the cornerstone of text design (pardon my inner type and design nerd). The point is that this article is really timely and I’m so glad it’s a feature.

And finally, saving the best for last, Nayer Khazeni’s personal essay Misadventures in the Motherland is evocative, finely crafted, and incredibly, heartbreakingly nostalgic. I’m so blown away by all this stuff on the Weekly this week. It truly makes me proud of both the paper and the Iranian community in Los Angeles - and truly makes me miss them. It might be a good idea to send the Weekly feedback on their site, thanking them for their coverage. As someone whose job it used to be to read all the reader letters sent to a magazine, trust me when I say that large groups of people writing about the same thing get noticed by editors, and they’re remembered, too.

And on a related side note, Pars Arts is looking for young Iranian diaspora - like you - to write for the site. If you’re interested in contributing, please email me at editor AT parsarts.com with your interest, ideas, and a writing sample. We have some excellent writers joining in the near future and look forward to bringing on many more.

Sara Rahbar at the Queens Museum of Art

Iranian-American mixed-media artist Sara Rahbar is part of the Queens Museum 2006 International show entitled Everything All at Once. Her work features a lot of photography and there are strong Iran and current events elements. The show ends on January 17, so if you’re in New York time is almost out. Here’s more about the museum and an interview with the artist.

New Visual Culture of Modern Iran

Bruce Bahmani recently wrote an Iranian.com review of an Iranian graphic design/art book that looks fascinating, New Visual Culture of Modern Iran, by Reza Abedini. It speaks to a lot of the things that make compelling the calligraphy of Sadegh Tabrizi, which we covered recently: type and calligraphy as a medium of (political? emotional? all of the above?) expression. If you’re a typography, calligraphy, or art nerd, I’d bet this book will be right up your alley.

Check out more sample pages of the book here, on the publisher’s website.

Maz Jobrani in The Knights of Prosperity

This Wednesday marks the debut of The Knights of Prosperity, which includes Iranian-American actor and comedian Maz Jobrani as an Indian cabbie. I’m not sure how I feel about this show or his character and I’ll be honest when I say that I don’t have high hopes for any of it (Donal Logue is the headliner, it really seems more like yet another exercise in tired stereotypes, it’s a cast of mostly men, etc.), but who knows? It might be good, even if it’s not for me. I’ve seen Maz’s stand-up act and I really like him and the way he pokes fun at “Iranianness,” if you will. American television and the humor it favors are on such a low plane, though, that I wonder how much of that will come through on this show. BUT, again, I’ll emphasize that I haven’t seen it and I’m not the target demographic, so any judgment about the show is unfair and unfounded. And Maz is cool, regardless. If anyone catches this show, please feel free to comment here and let us know what you think.