Dariush Mehrjui

Born in Tehran, Mehrjui developed an early interest in music, learning the piano and santur. He came to study cinema at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but abandoned it for a philosophy degree, reputedly disappointed by the UCLA film school’s Hollywood emphasis. After graduating in 1964, he started a literary magazine, which he saw not as a rejection of cinema but as the best way to combine his literary, painterly, musi­cal, and philosophical interests. Mahrjui’s first film upon his return to Iran was Diamond 33 (1967), a rehash of the James Bond subgenre, that was neither critically nor commercially successful. Mehrjui never returned to such action-dominated filmmaking, and his next film, The Cow (1969), scripted and based on a story by Gholamhos­sein Saedi, began his regular collaboration with important literary figures. A metaphoric critique of the Iranian government shot in stark black^-and-white, The Cow helped launch the Iranian New Wave and brought Mehrjui fame both domestically and on the International film festival circuit. In Mr. Naïve (1970), The Postman (1971), and The Cycle (1976), he continued to expose social problems through a poetic approach to cinema that could bypass official censorship.

Although he temporarily left the country following the 1979 Iranian Revolution—making A Journey to the Land of Rimbaud in France in 1984—Mehrjui has returned to make some of the most acclaimed postrevolutionary Iranian films. His comedy on the hous­ing situation in Tehran, The Tenants (1985), was highly successful at the box-office. Harpoon (1990) is a complex tale of intellectual alienation, interlaid with dream sequences and fantasies, as the eponymous protagonist struggles to balance Western objectivism and traditional beliefs. Banu (1992), Sara (1993), Pari (1994), and Leila (1996) are all films that center on the lives and struggles of bourgeois women, a clear shift from Mehrjui’s early focus on the poor. Leila, banned in Iran until Mohammad Khatami was elected president, is the story of a barren woman (Leila Hatami) who, despite her own feelings, allows—indeed encourages—her husband to take a second wife so that he might have a child. Including many close-ups and a shadowy bedroom scene, Leila pushed at the limits of Iranian censor ship; it also provoked vehement criticism for its portrayal of female villainy and passivity. Although the film utilizes numerous distanc­ing devices—notably direct address to the camera, sound distortion, missing frames, and brightly colored fades—the emotionally wrenching story remains paramount. Mehrjui has completed more than 20 features to date, sustaining one of Middle Eastern cinema’s most significant careers.

Sara (1993)

Inspired by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and adapted to Iranian realities, Sara presents a positive protagonist, who is effectively involved in the welfare of her family. She saves her husband’s life by borrowing the money for his operation with­out his knowledge and embroiders wedding gowns secretly in the house for four years to pay back the loan. When the husband, who is shown as a self-centered character with tunnel vision, finally finds out, instead of thanking her, he gets upset because now they are indebted to his corrupt clerk. He calls her ‘a brainless woman’. In an emotionally charged scene, he stands on top of the stairs and yells at Sara’s tiny figure down below that he will not let her bring up his child. By the time conflict reaches a resolution, Sara has gained a new outlook on life, which makes it impossible for things to remain the same. Her final look from the rear window of the taxi as she leaves her husband is full of fear and apprehension. The film is open-ended, but there is every indication that her revolt is far from over. Now that she has gained self-respect and confidence, she can have a new start, with or without her husband.

The last duologue between the couple is significant. Unlike the routine conversations about mundane daily matters that we had heard before as the couple sat to eat while watching television, this is the first time they really talk to each other:

Sara: I have been victimized, first by my father, then by you. Neither of you treated me like a human being. When I was at my father’s home, I had to think like him. If I had an idea of my own, I had to shut up because he did not like being contradicted. When I began to see things, I fell into your house. Here I was the mute little darling who had to do what she was told to do and keep quiet.

Husband: No man would sacrifice his honor for the sake of love.

Sara: And yet women do it all the time.

Apart from Sara, there are two other women in the film: the old aunt, who is the epitome of a woman seen and not heard, and Sara’s friend and confidante, Sima, an independ­ent, self-supporting widow. Unlike Sara, Sima is not afraid of men. She knows their weak points and she knows how to deal with them, which is unusual for women who are brought up in traditional Muslim households, where mothers install the fear of masculine superiority in their daughters at an earlier age.

Sara’s revolt brings about a revelation; faced with a determined woman, men are as helpless as a child. The roles can easily be reversed. The circular camera shots of the last sequences show the confused state of the husband running around his wife, who is calm and composed as she prepares her luggage. As the taxi pulls away, he stands at the door helpless like a child who has lost his toy. With only a bedsheet covering his lower parts, he also looks rather ridiculous.

Among the ‘women’ cycle of Mehrjui’s work, Sara is perhaps the most outstanding. The film enjoyed wide popularity in Iran, especially among women who found the story of a woman’s sacrifices for her husband and the selfishness of Muslim men who put disgrace to their honor before everything else very familiar – Gönül Dönmez-Colin

Cast and Production Credits

Year - 1993, Genre – Drama, Country -Iran, Language – Persian, Director – Dariush Mehrjui, Cast – Niki Karimi, Amin Tarokh, Khosro Shakibai, Yasman Malek-Nasr