Two Women

            It has been a few weeks since I watched the film Two Women.  But as I was watching it for another class, I was totally mesmerized by it and its characters.  I loved the two main characters, Roya and Fereshtah. 

                  In the other class, we discussed the significance of repetition in the film, the “beating of the dead horse,” if you will.  My own conclusion was that that repetitive scenes in the movie were not accidental, but served to show how monotonous life would be for a person such as Fereshtah.  They showed how frustrated one would be if she were continually denied justice, freedom, and an education, as Fereshtah was.  Also, the darkness of some parts of the movie may have been frustrating to viewers, but it showed how frustrating and depressing it would be to constantly live inside as Fereshtah was forced to do.

                  Another quam that the other class had with the movie is that most of the men in it men were portrayed as ignorant, brutish, and awful in their treatment of women.  There were only two or so that were portrayed positively (the cousin and Roya’s husband).  Maybe this is because the film is trying to get across a point about Iranian men in general.  The generalization did not seem fair, but since I do not live in that society, I do not know how accurate it really was.

                  In reality, this film is very depressing- not just informational, but depressing.  It confirms some of our stereotypes of Iran as being broadly true, with some exceptions, of course, like Roya.  Watching the film, I could not help but feel terribly for what Fereshtah had to go through, especially the emotional abuse of never being trusted by anyone and never being treated as the responsible, intelligent person that she was.