Women Without Men is a 2009 film adaptation of the 1990 Shahrnush Parsipur novel, directed by Shirin Neshat. Neshat's work explores gender issues in the Islamic world. Women without Men is her first dramatic feature.
The film profiles the lives of four women living in Tehran in 1953, during the American-backed coup that returned the Shah of Iran to power. The film was called "visually transfixing" by The New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden, who added, "the film surpasses even Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon in the fierce beauty and precision of its cinematography (by Martin Gschlacht)."
Two of the film's recurrent images are of a long dirt road extending to the horizon on which the characters walk, and a river that suggests, "a deep current of feminine resilience below an impassive exterior."
Production
Women Without Men was filmed in Morocco, with Casablanca standing in for Tehran, Iran. The film originated as a video installation by the filmmaker/artist, Shirin Neshat.
Plot
The film begins with the sound of Adhaan. A woman is standing on the rooftop contemplating jumping. She jumps in slow motion. Flashback. Munis does not want a husband. Her tyrannical brother, Amir Khan, wants Munis to prepare for a visiting suitor and demands that she cook dinner for them. When she scoffs at the idea, he gets angry, and threatens that if she leaves the house he will break her legs.
Protests fill the street. People are chanting "Durood bar Mosaddegh, marg bar Englis" ("Long live Mosaddegh, Death to Britain"). A second woman, the religiously observant Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), joins Munis and they discuss the protests. Faezeh calls the protestors "a bunch of ne'r do wells". Munis suggests that they themselves should be outside protesting. Faezeh, who secretly longs to marry Munis' brother, asks if it is true that he will marry someone else. Munis nods her head, yes.
A prostitute, Zarin (Orsi Toth), puts on makeup. A male client gets up and dresses. As Zarin washes her face, a brothel madam is calling out her name. Zarin curls into a corner and begins to sob, as the madam continues to yell that there is another customer. Another man appears in Zarin's room. Surrealistically, in Zarin's point-of-view, he appears to be "faceless." Zarin rushes out of the brothel, the madam calling after her.
In the next sequence, a wealthy 50-year-old woman named Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad), arrives at a military event where her husband Sadr, a general, is being honored. They get into a marital dispute about another officer, an old flame, Abbas (Bijan Daneshmand) who has returned to Tehran and with whom she has been seen talking. Sadr tells Fakhri she is aging and that if she is unable to satisfy him sexually, he'll get another wife. Crying, she says she is tired of him and leaves.
Faezeh and Munis are in the garden of Munis' home, gossiping about the woman that Munis' brother is planning to marry. It is suggested that the fiancee may not even be a virgin. Munis' brother shows up and they get into another argument.
Zarin the prostitute is at a bath house. She is wearing a long (a traditional Iranian piece of cloth used to cover the body in a public bath). A female dallak (a person whose job is to help people wash themselves in a public bath) offers to aid her but she refuses. When Zarin opens the robe to bathe, her gaunt body and protruding ribs are revealed. She proceeds to scrub her body vigorously, so hard that her skin becomes raw and bleeds.
Faezeh and Amir Khan find Munis, apparently dead, in the street. She seems to have jumped from the roof while they were getting ready, after Amir unplugs her only connection to the outside world, the radio. On discovering her body, Amir curses her for disgracing him and buries her in the garden as Faezeh looks on.
A group of women in black chadors are mourning. Zarin, in a white flowered chador, walks by, scowling. She continues walking until she comes to a group of men in sujud during prayer. She defiantly stands in front of them until they rise. She then scampers away into the night. Zarin walks until daybreak onto a dirt road, and the rivulet from the beginning of the film appears again. She walks into the river, leaving her chador behind.