Like mother, like daughter
Powerful Iranian film tells story of teen rebellion
Powerful and surprising, this first feature from Iranian writer-director Sadaf Foroughi tells a familiar story of teen angst and parental control. Ironically, the most surprising thing about it is how familiar it is.
Ava (Mahour Jabbari) is a teenager in Tehran, but her preoccupations — boys, music lessons, freedom to hang with her friends — could just as easily place her in Toronto or Terrace, B.C. Her father (also the family peacekeeper) is eager for her to explore her own interests, even those like playing the violin that her mother (Bahar Noohian) deems a waste of time.
Things come to a head when Mom learns that Ava’s music-recital partner is a boy, and she’s been spending time with him outside of practice. She drags her daughter off to a doctor to check that she’s still a virgin, which so upsets the girl that she starts acting out even more, earning reprisals from her school’s strict headmistress, which only further feeds the flames of rebellion.
It soon emerges that Ava’s mother, now a doctor herself, had her own youthful indiscretions, which she’s now anxious for her daughter not to duplicate. (Parenting hint: Calling your offspring’s best friend “brazen” will not endear you.)
Foroughi has a great ear for dialogue, and the back-andforth between husband and wife or mother and daughter feels completely natural. The director also tries experimenting with camera angles, sometimes leaving a speaker’s head out of the frame, or out of focus. It’s not always effective, but the variety and the effort is refreshing.
Ava had eight nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards, and won for best supporting actress (Noohian). It’s something of a CSA oddity, since the eligibility of this shot-in-Iran film was due to it being a Canadian co-production. On the other hand, the story it tells is so universal, it’s surely as Canadian as anything else our country has to offer.