Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Wed 25 Jun & Cineworld, Edinburgh, Sat 28 Jun
Kianoosh Ayari / Iran / 2012 / 105 mins
Spanning sixty-six years and four generations, this story of family honour and dark secrets is a fascinating and often troubling look at Iranian society, the roles assigned to women and the power of paternalism.
Beginning in 1929 with a brutal sororicide – carried out by a brother on the order of his father – the secret is literally buried, but its consequences seep out over the years, fracturing bonds of trust and duty.
The entire film takes place inside the family house and courtyard, which increases the intensity of the emotions and underscores the inability of characters to escape their responsibilities and actions. It also means that changes that occurred over decades in Iranian society have to be reflected via changes in costume and developing attitudes toward marriage and freedoms.
What pervades director Kainoosh Ayari’s film are ideas of honour and dishonesty, the self-deceiving beliefs regarding family duty and who has the right to control another’s life moving from certainty to doubt in the characters’ minds. A subtle microcosm of an Iranian society that continues to struggle between tradition and modernity, this is a story that manages to make feminist points without didacticism and wraps them up in an engrossing and intelligent drama.
Comments