Floating Leaf

Another Friday. Another Netflix movie. Iranian this time. About two young women who are best friends at a university in Tehran. Then one gets lucky and marries a nice guy - one of their teachers - while the other one goes back to her small, close-minded hometown and marries a creep. Actually, it all starts with another creep, who fancies her and follows her around the city, blissfully disregarding her total lack of interest. She tries to ignore him for as long as she can, but after he throws acid at her cousin (whom he takes for a boyfriend), she finally goes to the police. Which, as it turns out, is a disgrace to the family - so her father orders her sternly to quit her studies, pack up her stuff and go back home. Which she regretfully does. The creep, however, follows her there. One day, as she's out driving her parents' car, he starts chasing her on his motorbike. She freaks out and accidentally knocks over a kid playing ball in the street. The freak on the bike knocks over another kid and kills him. There is a trial. The girl is ordered to pay some sort of retribution to the parents of the injured kid. Neither she nor her parents have any money - but one of her father's friends shows up and says he would pay for everything... as long as she marries him. So, under enormous pressure from her parents, she does. And very soon finds out that her new husband is an obssessively jealous control freak. He locks her up in the house, takes away the phone, throws out her best friend when she comes to visit etc. Even her father finally relents and agrees she should try to get a divorce - but the judge declares that since her husband pays his bills and does not beat her, there are no grounds for divorce. Verbal abuse and threats don't count. Finally, after another useless screaming row, she just runs out of the house, desperate to get away from him - and who should she run into, but the vile acid-throwing creep who just got out of jail. And she says, fine, just kill me already, I've had enough. But then the husband catches up with them and attacks the other guy, and OMG YES they kill each other right there on the spot. Perfect ending, as fas as I'm concerned.

But my point in telling the whole story is that this girl is not some kind of dumb pushover. She is a brilliant student, extremely smart, well-read, brave, outspoken, confident. She doesn't just accept her fate like so many abused women do. She stands up for herself. She fights. And yet, she gets totally screwed over by a bunch of jerks - starting with her father. There is simply nothing she can do - other than perhaps kill herself... but she is too vibrant, strong and hopeful for that.

My point is, why are there so many cultures on this earth where men never grow up? Where a wife is just a servant and a toy - two for the price of one? Btw, the blurb on the DVD envelope says that writer/director Tahmineh Milani (...) would later be imprisoned for the images she put in films such as this one. Looks like the truth about the workings of patriarchal society was too hard to handle for the creeps in power. And yes, it's the 21st century we're talking about here. *shudders*

But the saddest part is, at some point the girl in the movie tries to convince herself that she loves her husband, because that's the only way she can cope with her fucked-up existence. And that says so much about how we women function - how frightfully easy it can be for us to become victims, or colaborators in our own enslavement. Precisely because of our great capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy and the like. Those can be so crippling when directed at the wrong person. Telling yourself you love someone who thinks it's perfectly OK to beat you verbally into a pulp? Been there, done that. And no, in my case that wasn't even a man - which somehow gives even more emphasis to the problem. Sometimes I do wonder how much it would have taken for me to actually pay back in the same coin (I never did). Or how bad it would have been if I ever DID fall in love with a guy capable of throwing acid in someone's face. It happens to a lot of women, you know. Anyway... pondering those kinds of questions makes me all the more happy and relieved to be single - believe it or not.;P