Film Review: Nasrin

                                                                            

 

We Americans think we’ve got it tough, just trying to get back some semblance of normalcy after four years of a political regime gone awry and a pandemic that still keeps most of us separated from friends and social gatherings.

But consider – in a much longer time frame – the plight of women in Iran, who in the approximately 2500 years of its existence as a political entity went from the right to own property, manage their own finances, receive an education and choose their spouse (in ancient Persia) to a status equal to children and slaves (in 224 AD) to getting some of those rights back under the Shah in the 1960s.

The Iranian Revolution in 1979 brought back the forced Islamic dress code and deprived women of certain jobs, child custody and divorce. Ouch.

Meet Nasrin Sotoudeh, a contemporary female civil rights attorney and voice for the voiceless in present-day Iran. Nasrin specializes in women’s and children’s rights, domestic abuse and death penalty cases. This does not endear her to the government; she has, in fact, been jailed several times for her efforts.

But the woman we meet in the new film “Nasrin” perseveres – cheerfully, in fact – with her work. It’s downright inspiring to watch her talk with a new client arrested for a demonstration against the dress code that requires women to wear a hijab in public.

Nasrin left the courtroom because they would not let her speak. The defendant got 21 months in prison (but was released after three); Nasrin was herself arrested and forced to spend 2-1/2 months in solitary confinement.

Nasrin’s husband Reza, a graphic designer, supports his wife’s crusade, by now used to taking care of their two children when she ends up in jail.

The film is remarkable in many ways, the heroism of Nasrin being only one. Though filming was done surreptitiously over more than two years, the editing is superb and the result consistently engaging.

There is footage, for example, of Nasrin and her friends sitting around the table making dolls and other items to sell during the holiday season.

“Every year, we put on a craft show to pay blood money to free prisoners,” she says.

There are scenes with TV journalist Ann Curry (who notes that she found Iranians she has spoken with to be open-hearted) and with Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who in 2010 was prohibited from making films for 20 years.

The world could use many more heroines like Nasrin. This film is a good down payment on doing her justice.