Women Without Men: Movie Analysis
Hamid Rustum
7/8/2013
Summer Semester
Film Reaction
Women Without Men Overall I found Women Without men to be an interesting, creative and unique movie and while I felt like I wasn’t able to fully interpret the movie under one sitting I feel like was able to walk away with a powerful message of what life was like for women back in Tehran Iran in the 1950’s. While I felt sympathy for each of the 4 characters in the movie the character and scenes that shocked me and disturbed me the most were the scenes involving Zarrin. One of the first scene you see her in is her having sex with a man in a brothel. This scene lasted longer than I had expected and I felt very uncomfortable watching it but I think that was what the director, Shirin Neshat aiming going for. I think the director was trying to give the audience a small taste of what the character was going, I found myself thinking “I can’t wait for this scene to be over” and I fell like Zarrin was thinking the same thing. This scene along with others showed how prevalent the objectification of women was in Tehran at that time and it showed the mental stress that a prostitute has to go through. During the entire act Zarrin was trying to dissociate from herself and the man having his way with her, she looked like a zombie, and then after she has a mental breakdown and that is met with no sympathy from the coordinator of the brothel. It is very apparent that Zarrin is going through tremendous mental stress all throughout the movie and it is painfully obvious that nobody in 1953 Tehran really cared for her wellbeing. Another scene that made troubled me was when Zarrin was in the community bath and she started to wash her skin until she started bleeding. I have heard of rape victims doing similar behaviors but I have never seen it portrayed like this. Even though it was upsetting watching Zarrin go through such mental anguish, I thought it was even more upsetting to see the reaction of everyone else in the bath.
7/8/2013
Summer Semester
Film Reaction
Women Without Men Overall I found Women Without men to be an interesting, creative and unique movie and while I felt like I wasn’t able to fully interpret the movie under one sitting I feel like was able to walk away with a powerful message of what life was like for women back in Tehran Iran in the 1950’s. While I felt sympathy for each of the 4 characters in the movie the character and scenes that shocked me and disturbed me the most were the scenes involving Zarrin. One of the first scene you see her in is her having sex with a man in a brothel. This scene lasted longer than I had expected and I felt very uncomfortable watching it but I think that was what the director, Shirin Neshat aiming going for. I think the director was trying to give the audience a small taste of what the character was going, I found myself thinking “I can’t wait for this scene to be over” and I fell like Zarrin was thinking the same thing. This scene along with others showed how prevalent the objectification of women was in Tehran at that time and it showed the mental stress that a prostitute has to go through. During the entire act Zarrin was trying to dissociate from herself and the man having his way with her, she looked like a zombie, and then after she has a mental breakdown and that is met with no sympathy from the coordinator of the brothel. It is very apparent that Zarrin is going through tremendous mental stress all throughout the movie and it is painfully obvious that nobody in 1953 Tehran really cared for her wellbeing. Another scene that made troubled me was when Zarrin was in the community bath and she started to wash her skin until she started bleeding. I have heard of rape victims doing similar behaviors but I have never seen it portrayed like this. Even though it was upsetting watching Zarrin go through such mental anguish, I thought it was even more upsetting to see the reaction of everyone else in the bath.