Episode #27 -- The Circle

(or: "All Cakes Must Be Destroyed!")

Interlocking tales show the plight of contemporary Iranian women and the oppression that they endure from their families, their government, and the cultural norms of the patriarchal society in which they live. http://www.firouzanfilms.com/TheFirouzanFifty/Movies/TheCircle/index.html

In this episode we watch Jafar Panahi's 2000 film, The Circle, which is about the stories of several different women living on their own in Iran. It's pretty bleak, although it never reaches the same depths of grimness that we encountered when we watched Lilya 4-Ever way back in our second episode, thank fuck. As we discuss in the episode, Panahi leaves nearly every story unresolved, but the movie doesn't suffer for it. It's a very interesting movie, and Panahi's career and the things that he's had to do to get his movies made at all are equally interesting, and at the risk of revealing our opinions on the movie before you listen to the episode, it made us want to seek out the other movies he's made, which doesn't happen often for us.

Also, perceptive listeners may note that both of us sound hoarse and sick still-- sorry about that! Most of the coughs and death rattles have been edited out for your listening pleasure. You're welcome!

NEXT TIME: we watch... get this... a movie of some sort! Pretty wild, right?