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Women without men is a film that follows the lives of four Iranian women in Tehran during the upheaval of the British, American backed coup against the government in 1953. It was originally a book banned in the mid-1960s ("Zanan Bedun-e Mardan"), by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur and has been brought to cinema by visual artist Shirin Neshat who was granted the award for best director at last year’s Venice Film Festival
The four female protagonists, of different ages, are representative of the suffering and repression faced by Iranian women, coming from upper-middle class wife to lower class prostitute. As their journeys unravel their courage and struggle against a series of challenges is intertwined with the resistance of the Iranian people against the coup d’etat. In an interview Shirin Neshat explained how ‘Women without men’ is not a story opposing men but instead an insight into the torment the country has undergone from the eyes of females. The strength and bravery shown by the women is reminiscent of the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh of the victimised government, who passionately opposed foreign intervention in Iran. Among the violence of the coup, the scenes of the natural, tranquillity of the Iranian country symbolise the beauty and courage that has prevailed under external oppression.
Neshrat has artistically brought the magic realism genre of the novel into the visual as there lingers a poetic mysticism beneath the happenings of the plot. This is brought to the surface as the four characters meet in the metaphorical garden at the close of the film, epitomising the transcending unity of Iran’s culture.
 

01:05:2010