THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 2001 filmcritic.com
filmcritic.com
A movie called The Day I Became a Woman can only be about one of two things. Either it's going to star a young girl who is coming of age or a guy who's getting a sex change operation.
Surprise, on this Day we get three (genuine) women all going through various life experiences. They can be nearly meaningless -- a nine year old girl is given one hour to play on the morning of her birthday. They can mean the end of life as you know it -- a married woman is verbally divorced by her husband when she refuses to stop riding her beloved bicycle. And they can be perplexingly final -- a very old lady spends her life savings on all new appliances, sets them up on a beach, and then puts them all on rafts as she sets sail for a boat that doesn't exist.
Needless to say, we don't normally see stuff like this coming out of Hollywood; The Day I Became a Woman is an Iranian film directed by Marzieh Meshkini, 74 slight minutes told in three miniscule vignettes.
Now, most of us (myself included) typically stow the phrases "Iranian cinema" and "rollicking good time" in totally different parts of our brains. Personally, the plodding pace and overblown self-importance of Middle Eastern films (see also A Time for Drunken Horses) typically numb me into a depressed coma. But The Day I Became a Woman stands out as a reasonably intriguing film -- enlightening us about the life of the modern Iranian while not pretending to be so significant that the very earth will shake thanks to its creation. Along with A Taste of Cherry, another recent Iranian import, there appears to be some filmic promise coming out of this war-torn country after all. Not that Michael Bay has anything to worry about.
Aka Roozi khe zan shodam.
RATING: ***
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Marzieh Meshkini Producer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf Writer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Marzieh Meshkini Starring: Fatemeh Cherag Akhar, Shabnam Toloui, Azizeh Sedighi, Hassan Nebhan, Sirous Kahvarinegad, Badr Iravani
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