THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Marzieh Meshkini's THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN (ROOZI KHE ZAN SHODAM) tells three short stories, the first touching, the second tragic and the third comedic, after which they are briefly brought together. These simple episodes are all admirable but rarely engaging. And, although the movie comes in at a mere 78 minutes, 10 would have sufficed. After about 3 minutes, each of the stories has made its rather straightforward point quite gracefully. The next 20 minutes of each adds little other than needless reinforcement.
The first story concerns a 9-year-old girl named Hava (Fatemeh Cherag Akhar) who is about to lose her freedom and her childhood. At that age, she is required to always be covered in a chador and not play with male friends anymore. Using a stick as a crude sundial to tell when the dreaded hour of noon arrives, which will signal the end of her youth, she tries her best to enjoy the time she has left.
The second story, which might be called "Pedal Ahoo Pedal," has Ahoo (Shabnam Toloui) in a bicycle race. As she burns up the road, her husband rides alongside her on horseback, divorcing her on the spot with the help of a mullah who rides along on another horse. The mullah, in the story's only memorable line, calls her bicycle, "the devil's mount." Toloui's acting is exquisite, showing her pain and determination with eye expressions alone.
The last story is about a senile grandmother (Azizeh Sedighi) who takes a large inheritance and goes on a big shopping spree. Everything from a refrigerator to a bed, all in crates, follows her wheelchair like a Werner Herzog designed caravan.
It's always hard understanding someone else's religion, but the images shown of Islam in this picture give one a feeling of sad repression. And it is the images alone that stay with you after this film is over.
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN runs a surprisingly long feeling 1:17. The film is in Farsi with English subtitles. It is not rated but would probably be a G since there isn't anything offensive.
Web: <http://www.InternetReviews.com>
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email? Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
========== X-RAMR-ID: 28754 X-RT-AuthorID: 1271 X-RT-TitleID: 1106928 X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews