The Day I Became a Woman

Delightful as it is, the burgeoning Iranian “new wave” cinema has taken a few knocks for being lugubrious. It's simply not a thrill-a-minute, knockabout filmmaking tradition. You'll not find blitzkrieg editing techniques or CGI mummies, automotive conflagrations, sprung thriller pacing, flatulence jokes, or any of the other seemingly cherished motifs of domestic summertime fare. Rather, you find stories of personal evolution and painful reality, often implicitly political, acted by nonprofessionals and filmed with painterly restraint. The Day I Became a Woman is as good an example of this tradition as you're likely to find, but director Meshkini embellishes upon it with innovative touches: a surrealistic tone, a layered triptych structure, and even a bit of visual humor. Each of the three stories focuses on a woman in transition -- from childhood to puberty, from wifehood to independence, into the “freedom” of spinsterhood -- within a patriarchal social structure that takes without giving. In the first episode, a little girl (Ahktar) awakens on her birthday to find the chador -- the traditional garment worn by Iranian women, who are required to cover their hair after they reach the age of nine -- waiting for her, and her best friend (who is a boy) inexplicably off-limits. Her grandmother (Passand) calculates that an hour remains before the girl turns nine, so she's allowed to play and buy ice cream. But if she returns late, she's told, “God will not forgive you.” In the second episode, a young wife (Toloui) rides in a women's bicycle race with her husband literally in pursuit on horseback, shouting out a divorce decree when she refuses to go home. (The location, Kish Island, is the only place in Iran where women are permitted to bicycle.) In the third tale, an elderly woman (Seddighi) goes on a shopping spree, collecting all the niceties she'd been denied: a refrigerator and teapot, a bedroom set, Western-style bridal gown. But her purchases bring her no pleasure, since her household is empty as the result of a fickle husband's spurning. The thesis of the film -- that the attainment of womanhood is tantamount to the loss of freedom, both to patriarchal prerogative and to the demands of adulthood -- isn't exactly a light-hearted notion. But the film is dignified rather than dour, full of rich imagery. The most unsavory moment -- the repercussions of the wife's refusal to abandon the race -- are seen in an artfully composed long take, shot from the perspective of the winner of the race, looking backwards over her shoulder. The tales are interesting enough as stand-alone narratives, since they were planned as three short films (shorts do not require the script approval process needed for feature films made in Iran). Together, they build into a prismatic, complex portrait of the lives of women, or even of a single woman, seen at different stages in the life cycle.