Tehran Taboo
TEHRAN TABOO, animated drama, not rated, in Persian with subtitles, Jean Cocteau Cinema, 3.5 chiles
On March 8 — International Women’s Day — The Washington Post reported that women in Tehran have been taking off their hijabs to protest their unequal treatment under Iran’s Islamic law. It is illegal for a woman there to be seen in public without a headscarf, just as it is illegal for her to travel internationally. The animated feature Tehran Taboo, directed by Ali Soozandeh, explores restrictions on women in Iran, which are not limited to bureaucratic hurdles but also come with a massive sexual double standard. Women can be disgraced as “whores” and “prostitutes,” while men live with far less fear about being caught in sexual indiscretions.
The movie focuses on the intersecting lives of three women: Pari (voiced by Elmira Rafizadeh), a prostitute with a mute son; Sara (Zahra Amir Ebrahimi), a newly pregnant would-be teacher who is married to a banker; and Donya (Negar Mona Alizadeh), whose quick tryst in a bar bathroom with aspiring musician Babak (Arash Marandi) leads the pair to spend the movie looking for a way to restore her virginity so that her hulking fiancée doesn’t kill him. Tehran Taboo uses rotoscoping, a form of animation in which drawing is done over real actors who were filmed in a studio. The background of Iran’s capital city is filled in with CGI. This technique affords viewers a more comfortable remove from some of the intimate scenes of Pari’s work life, to which her son often has a front-row seat.
Tehran Taboo is overt in its efforts to educate viewers about the misery of women in Iran and indicates that women who lack husbands to care for them have two choices: prostitution or death. Men in Tehran Taboo jump at any chance for casual sex and then cry foul if or when they are rebuffed. Pari moves into Sara’s apartment building as the kept woman of a judge, telling her new neighbors she works nights as a nurse. They volunteer to watch her little boy, and Pari and Sara become friends. Babak is something of a mensch in the way he tries to help Donya, although his behavior ultimately has more to do with protecting himself than being a stand-up guy who understands his complicity in Donya’s downfall. Pari, because she has already fallen so far from grace, represents a kind of freedom that Sara, as a respectable expecting mother, can only dream of. — Jennifer Levin