TeaTwo-year-old Mahsa Amini is not the first victim of Iran’s moral obsession, nor is it the first time the country has risen to protest the imposition of the hijab. Renowned as one of the world’s most exciting and path-breaking film industries, Iranian cinema with its preserved, subtle and simple portrayals has been slow on the fringes of this bitterly oppressive regime over the years. From Abbas Kiarostami to Rakshan Bani-Etmad and Mania Akbari, Iranian filmmakers are leading a quiet fight for liberation while adhering to their country’s strict hijab laws.
For the filmmakers, it has been a carefully choreographed waltz of rebellion against the rigid hijab rules, playing with image and imagination and testing the limits of what they can get away with.
Yet, as veiled as they are in their treatment of the subject, contemporary Iranian directors have never shied away from bypassing religious fatwas and offering social criticism without disrespecting the hijab—or their art.
“I think it’s one of Iran’s major exports: pistachios, carpets, besides oil, now, there’s cinema,” Kiarostami Told A Parisian journalist in the early 1990s. After the 1979 revolution, deposed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—the modern, forward-thinking Shah of Iran, whose reign saw women flourish without covering their heads—two forms of filmmaking on modern Iranian culture Dominated. Populist cinema, which emphasized and glorified ‘Islamic values’, and quality cinema, which questioned, evaluated and criticized these values while still being in line with the country’s mandatory hijab laws.
Read also: Many Shades of Gray in Iran’s Hijab War Show It’s Not Just Individual Freedom Versus Democracy
Hijab in Iranian pop culture
As Iranian cinema changed between these important phases, so did its complex relationship with the hijab. Between 1979 and 1981, earlier films from a relatively modern and liberal period in Iranian history were ‘heavily edited’ in accordance with the country’s new hijab-stalker censorship. As a result, Iran became obsessed with possessing its revolutionary ideas of women and love. Curtain Women disappeared from big screen and action movies like jade, Siege of the Kingdom, Battle of Algiers, And battle of chile taken over. These films focus more on revolution concepts and military hardware, not on the trademark aesthetic for which Iranian films are now known, writing Author Hamid Nafisi.
Children’s films developed as a distinct dominating genre. It included the educational brief of Kiarostami. Toothache (1980), In which children were told about the importance of dental hygiene where is my friend’s house (1986), which featured a young boy struggling to return his classmate’s notebook after accidentally bringing it home. They fully conformed to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decree to use “cinema for education”. But, as expected, the women were reduced to background actors, rarely coming to the fore and moving the story forward.
Only since the late 1980s were women wearing hijabs seen on screen, albeit in unrealistic situations. Take Zafar Panahi’s critically acclaimed white balloon (1995). It tells the story of a little girl who loses the money she saved to buy a much-awaited goldfish. Seven-year-old hero Razih (Aida Mohammedkhani) is also seen at home wearing a crisp white hijab. This is in stark contrast to Iranian law, which allows women to keep their heads bare within the four walls of their homes. However, in order to screen the film, it was important for Panahi to envision logical situations where the hijab would seem appropriate as women are not allowed to show hair, skin or even the contours of their body on screen. . where is my friend’s house Women are portrayed in a similar manner, as the mother of Nayak Ahmed (Babek Ahmed Garib) keeps her head covered even in her household chores. Kiarostami, however, makes it realistic by making the headscarf look like a messy turban, meant to get stray hairs out of the way.
“People are driven to seek hidden, inner meanings in what they see, hear, and receive in their daily interactions with others, while trying to hide their own intentions.” writing Nafissi in the 2000 edition of the International Quarterly social Research, Commenting on Iran’s complex but often artistic relationship with “hide and unveil” on screen.
From Faryal Behzad to Rakshan Bani-Etmad, the hijab began to acquire new meaning in the 1990s as more female directors began to enter the Iranian film world. Filmmakers such as Bani-Etemad, known as the First Lady of Iranian cinema, started this movement by rooting their stories in ‘social realism’. According to Nafissi, in his 1994 film Blue,veil-The story of romantic love between an old farmer and a young peasant woman, who is always in a blue hijab – Bani-etemad means making love by showing sensual close-up shots of the woman’s bare feet. In this way, she breaks the rules of decency, but does not break them completely. The gorgeous blue veil is not a meaningless figure. Instead, it symbolizes the suppressed desire and right of a woman to be loved, which ultimately serves as a powerful social commentary on Iran’s oppressive culture.
Kiarostami takes a step forward with his pioneering film ten (2002), where a female cab driver (Maniya Akbari) escorts 10 female passengers from different walks of life, her stories criticize life in Iran.
Interestingly, the entire film was shot with just two handheld cameras. Women and their different perspectives are expressed through their style of wearing hijab. For example, the introspective and ‘modern’ frenzy wears hers loose-fitting around her neck, completing the look with fashionable sunglasses and colorful rings around her fingers. At the same time, one of her more conservative passengers drapes her scarf tightly, conveying varying degrees of empowerment. Maniya Akbari directed 10+4, either dah be alway chahri (2007,a powerful sequel ten, where is she investigation “The feeling of living with both life and death.” Akbari plays a breast cancer patient who loses her hair and her hijab while recovering from illness in a conservative society. Baring her bald head, Akbari flaunts almost brilliantly, drawing, questioning and protesting Iranian hijab laws in almost the same breath.
“I am a good thief, stealing life’s bits and moments, and presenting it back to life with an added meaning,” Akbari Told growing movies In a 2018 interview.
Read also: ‘We will fight, we will die’ – Iran nationwide protests put pressure on state
Bollywood Under My Burkha
Move to neighboring Bollywood, and the hijab turns into something glamorous – a marker of textbook Muslim grace and modesty as well as thrill and mystery. For example, in Priyanka Chopra seven blood pardon (2011) while enjoying qawwali, wears a burqa and Poetry With her on-screen husband Irrfan Khan. Or take Nauheed Sirusi anavar (2007), whose burqa-clad avatar from the evergreen song My god India has come to define a conservative Muslim woman, both beautiful and interesting thanks to her Curtain
However, to say that its depiction has not evolved over time would be an understatement. Alia Bhatt Razze (2018) and Gully Boy (2019) comes to mind. In RazzeThe veiled mysterious (and quite literally secret) Indian spy agrees, while Gully Boy, it depicts a highly independent and courageous Safina who is not afraid to express her religious identity. Veil also acquires different meaning lipstick under my burqa (2016). Shireen Aslam’s (Konkana Sen Sharma) burqa shows she is embracing her freedom and sensuality, leaving behind her repressed identity. On the contrary, Rehana Abidi’s (Plabita Borthakur) burqa helps them to lead a comfortable double life which, as we know, doesn’t last long. Like Iranian films, it serves as a commentary on the condition of women in India, showing how empowering the hijab that often suppresses can be.
Thoughts are personal.
This article is part of a series called off the reel, You can read all the articles here.