To be a refugee is to enter a world of confusion and desperation, hoping for institutional mercy and depending on the kindness of strangers. That’s also often true for women fleeing abusive relationships. It’s the double torture facing the title character in Shayda, a bitterly insightful yet still hopeful depiction of an Iranian woman and her daughter in an Australian refuge for women fleeing dangerous relationships.
Flicking through a photograph album Shayda (Ebrahimi) reveals her past: born and growing up under the oppressive reign of the Shah of Iran but becoming an adult under the repressive regime of the Ayatollahs. In an instant, first-time writer/director Noora Niasari establishes cultural, political, and personal history for Shayda, who has seen the promises of something like opportunity be vaporized by religious extremism and a marriage from which she now must escape. At the heart of every decision is the urge to protect her daughter, Mona (Zahednia) – from her violent and devious father (Sami), from deportation, from growing up without her mother, from becoming a woman in a theocracy that loathes women.
While Shayda spends much of her time in the shelter contending with low-key racism from some of the other residents, steely compassion is provided by the always-excellent Leah Purcell (who previously explored these same intersections of race, sex, and violence in The Drover’s Wife). As house mother Joyce, she is the sounding board and provider of resources for the residents’ search for safety and security. In Shayda’s case, she must handhold her through the emotional and legal minefield of trying to stay in Australia and trying to keep her child.
In many ways that matter, that child is Niasari herself, having lived through almost exactly the same circumstances. But the filmmaker shifts the camera away from her own viewpoint and focuses the story through her mother’s experiences: Indeed, Niasari relied heavily on her mother’s memoir to create the script. It’s a wise move, as Mona’s world revolves around the standard concerns of a small child: breakfast cereals, goldfish, and learning the meaning of the items required to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian new year, and – more importantly – to see her mother smile when she remembers what they mean. Shayda’s task is to keep her daughter safe from all the horrors she knows are just out of her sight, and to keep them that way, all while preserving some connection to her roots (there’s a constant subtext of Shayda seeing herself as Persian rather than Iranian, and that’s a powerful driver in her aspirations and dreams). Through her eyes, Shayda is a quietly devastating look at the struggles and rewards of becoming a new self.
Best known for playing street-tough investigative journalist Arezoo Rahimi in Holy Spider, Ebrahimi places Shayda somewhere between the terror of opportunity and the necessity of survival, filled with hope, fear, and yearning, all under the specter of violence. It’s an understated performance in many ways, but in those quiet moments, whether it be a new haircut or a tapping foot, Ebrahimi provides an astonishing education of what it means to be a woman fleeing an abusive relationship.
However, Niasari does not ignore her own experiences. Instead, she finds Mona’s confusion at the slow realization that she’s little more than a tool in her father’s abusive attempts to control Shayda. It’s shown with the wisdom of hindsight, with empathy for everything her mother endured.
This article appears in March 22 • 2024.
