Feminist Perspectives on Iranian Films: Analyzing Oppression and Violence Against Woman

Abstract

This thesis concentrates on Iranian films produced between the years 1996-2005 which raise a feminist position and take up a critical toward the situation of women in Iranian society. This study examines the oppressive situation and violence against women in the filmic text. The feminist film analysis provides a framework for analyzing and interpreting the three selected films: Café Transit (2004), Leila (1997) and The Last Supper (2001). In traditional and patriarchal societies like Iran, gender equality and a demand for the expression of women’s subjectivity is often expressed through feminist-motivated film production – spaces where film makers have opportunities to question, however subtly, the roles and relations of women in society. This is similarly what is understood from selected films of this study. Reyhan, Leila and Mihan are the three female protagonists in these films: all suffer under the traditions of a society that see women as secondary citizens and where the voices of women are often subdued and subsumed under that of males. The protagonists of these films suffer under the violence of patriarchy and all three protagonists demand, in their own unique way, the expression of their subjectivity.