Stars: Fatemeh Cheragh Akhar, Shabnam Toloui, Azizeh Sedighi

Director: Marziyeh Meshkini

Summary: A tale of the second class status assumed by woman in Iran, three stories about woman at different stages of their lives and how they cope day to day. Farsi dialogue with subtitles.

For her first film, THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN, Marziyeh Meshkini, the wife of Iran's most prominent filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, has crafted a mystical three-part allegorical vision of the treacherous cycle in which Iranian women are robbed of their freedom and dignity. In the first episode, a girl is informed on her ninth birthday that she can no longer play with or speak to boys and must begin to wear the traditional head-to-toe black body covering warn by Iranian women. In the second, a young woman feverishly competes in a visually stunning all-female bicycle race while pursued on horseback by her husband, family, and clan members, urging her to return to her responsibilities and duties, and eventually taking her bicycle from her. The protagonist in the final episode is a crippled old woman, lost in delusional fantasies, who hires a young child to assist her in buying all of the things that she lacked throughout her long and difficult life. While the plots are simple, the interweaving visual and conceptual motif of a life cycle of deprivation and humiliation creates a reflexive and elegant elegy to the struggles and poetic dignity of the Iranian woman.

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The Day I Became a Womencontinues the upsurge, following years of cultural control, of vital films to have come out of Iran (remember 1999's Blackboards?). Marziyeh Meshkini's poignant and uninhibited feature packs a great deal into its 74 minutes: the arrival of nine-year-old Hava at the brink of puberty and the consequent loss of her childhood; the frustrated determination of Ahoo to take part in a cycle race against her family's wishes (some breathtaking camerawork here); and the pleasure of an ageing widow, amassing the material possessions long denied her as she creates the perfect home for her final years. Together, these stories present a three-stage study of the position of women in Eastern societies, facing up to often harsh realities with not a little courage.

The contrasts between the unyielding landscape and expansive coastal scenery--much more a presence than a mere backdrop--is tellingly caught, and reproduces well in the widescreen format. At a time when the debate over the standardisation of cinema is again in full swing, Meshkini shows how social restrictions can be channelled into filmmaking of emotional power and artistic vision. --Richard Whitehouse

Aspect Ratio:	1.66 Wide Screen
Main Language:	Farsi
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Production Notes, Filmographies
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2000
Release Date:	June 24, 2002
Runtime:	77 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A R T 220 D V D
Keywords:	Day, Woman, General, Wide, Screen, Became, I, Drama, Farsi
Genre:	Drama