The Circle

Starring: Maryiam Parvin Almani, Nargess Mamizadeh Director: Jafar Panahi Original UK Premiere: 2000 Dvd Release: 25th March, 2002 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Subtitled, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: English

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The Circle is a 2000 film by Iranian independent filmmaker Jafar Panahi that describes the treatment of women in that country. The film is composed of a series of stories that interconnect to describe various incidents in the lives of women, centering around a small group that was recently released from prison & their attempt to negotiate modern Tehran in a single day. Throughout the film, other womens lives are interspersed to provide insights into the everyday challenges women face under the fundamentalist regime, where even walking alone in the street or smoking a cigarette in public can be considered a crime. Each story intersects, but none of them are complete, leaving the viewer to imagine both the background & the ending. The film begins in a maternity ward of a hospital, where a mother, Solmaz Gholami, is upset to learn that her daughter has just given birth to a girl, even though the ultrasound indicated that the baby would be a boy. Worrying that her in-laws will force their son to divorce her daughter, she tells another daughter to call her uncles. Posters Of The Circle

Is there any intelligent, reasonably conscious person left in America or Britain that isn't at least vaguely aware that women in fundamentalist Islamic societies are treated, by Western standards, little better than dogs? Well, if you're living in a vacuum, see THE CIRCLE for an education.

The film begins at the birth of a baby girl to the daughter of a woman who realizes that this will be cause for divorce - her daughter's in-laws were expecting a boy. From that point, the camera follows several other women around the streets of an ostensibly Iranian city, one's story leading into that of the next. Each is trying to do something without the permission or accompaniment of a man or the proper identification papers, such as journey to another city, have an abortion, or travel alone at night by taxi. This makes them outcasts furtively slinking about their business, subject to arrest & imprisonment. Even chewing gum or smoking in public is cause for rebuke by the authorities. Their plight is contrasted with the relative freedom of the males in their society. For these women, there's no joy, or laughter, or any facet of what would otherwise be considered a normal life outside of the Third World. The message is clear - life is wretched for the unmarried & unsupervised woman.

There's no nudity, profanity or violence in THE CIRCLE. Yet, as I understand it, the film was banned in Iran. It's a bleak presentation, and, I'm afraid, perhaps boring if you're not being shown something you don't already know. But, if you're so inclined out of curiosity about the world around you, give it a look, & then give thanks for your great good fortune for living in the West - especially if you're a feminist.

Jafar Panahi is an internationally-acclaimed independent filmmaker. After studying film directing at the College of Cinema & Television in Tehran, Panahi made several films for Iranian television & was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostamis film Through The Olive Trees. Panahis debut as a director came in 1995 with White Balloon, which won a Camera dOr at the Cannes Film Festival. The 1997 film The Mirror, also directed by Panahi, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Festival. His most notable offering to date has been The Circle, which criticized the treatment of women under Irans Islamist regime. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003. Posters Of The Circle

Editors Choice: The Circle, View DVDology

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