The red suitcase
Directed by Cyrus Neshvad, 2022
As new Iranian filmography constantly challenges orthodoxies, “The Red Suitcase,” first released in 2022, is a welcome vehicle for international protest. Iran has been rocked by civilian protests, confirming that a long-silent public has reached a point of no return in its opposition to the regime. Only an omnipresent and brutal security apparatus and a vast secret service now hold the citizens of the Islamic Republic for a tenuous ransom. In this brutal and secretive theocracy, women suffered disproportionately from the callous tentacles of a moralistic police force.
Their invasive neighborhood information networks effectively stifle public life. Into this depressing theater of moral repression comes positive feedback on this Oscar-nominated short film which (conversely) places Iran in a more positive perspective. For those who are desperate, it is a reminder that the Ayatollahs are not safe from open international mockery, or even targeted opprobrium on a global scale, on the world’s grandest stage, Hollywood.
Shortlisted for the Oscars, “The Red Suitcase” demonstrates the potential of protest filmography to powerfully place injustices on the global agenda. It delights more in a cinematic moment than in the last torturous year of sporadic street warfare against Iranian authorities. Taking place at Luxembourg airport, the film tells the story of a 16-year-old Iranian girl from Tehran who nervously removes her headscarf in defiance of a medieval male dictatorship. For director Cyrus Neshvad, born in Iran but raised in Luxembourg, his film: “exposes the virus of a cancerous diet to the beautiful body of my native country… Once we have eliminated this virus, the body will flourish again.” he told AFP. The film includes striking photographic images of Iranian state repression and a cinematic montage of police beating female protesters into retreat.
In Iran, strong demonstrations were triggered by the death in police custody, in 2022, of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, arrested for improperly wearing the headscarf required by religious leaders. The scale and intensity of the street riots truly threatened the Islamic theocrats who took power in 1979. The Red Suitcase continues the momentum of the current uprising in Iran, but was filmed a year before it began. Despite the punches from an omnipresent morality brigade, Iranians felt that Mahsa must be avenged. The regime responded by cracking down on arrests and executions – including covertly intimidating the country’s athletes and filmmakers. Movie studios find plainclothes police monitoring their operations and discouraging the fragile theater industry.
The Oscar-nominated Iranian protest filmography has its roots in the injustices suffered by the director’s own family – who, as Bahais, are systematically persecuted in Iran. Cyrus also directly identifies among her own loved ones the neurosis and anguish long experienced by Iranian girls and women. Amini’s catastrophic death has once again focused the world’s attention on these patriarchal injustices. As Neshvad notes: “In Iran, women are under the domination of the man… If a woman wants to do something or go visit something, the man (her father or her husband) must consent, write the paper and sign it… For the girl in my film, removing her veil… was a moment of courage… for her to rebel against a path imposed on her, but also to inspire those watching… It will be a message: “Follow me – like me, take your hijab” leave, don’t accept this domination, and let’s be free, at least have the free will to decide.
The main actress of “The Red Suitcase”, Nawelle Evad, 22, is Franco-Algerian and herself protests against the issue of women and the Islamic headscarf – as well as against the debate surrounding them in the West. “I had a Muslim upbringing and I wore it,” she told AFP in Paris. “That’s what I find so beautiful about this film… the doubts that everyone, in any country, in any culture, faces… What do I choose for myself? Do I listen to my family? Do I make my own choices? There is also an implicit criticism of the West in the film.
Neshvad’s French partner Guillaume Levil also suggested that the film’s sexualized airport advertisements exploited women. The film’s final image, an advertisement showing a blonde model, is emblematic of both social dictates. The director notes: “The closer we get with the camera on her face, little by little we see that she is not happy, and when we are very, very close, we see that (she) is even afraid… And with that, I wanted to end the film. So (we criticize) not just one side, but both sides. »
The Iranian regime systematically discriminates against women, engages in violence and sexual exploitation of girls; imprisons, whips women and even commits extrajudicial executions – for “crimes” like appearing in public without having their heads covered. He harasses women’s rights activists; forcibly separates women from men; disproportionately punishes women in the justice system; denies women political and economic opportunities; and favors men over women in matters of family and inheritance law. Islamic head covering is violently imposed by the regime. Shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian regime forced women and girls over the age of nine to wear the hijab (Islamic head covering) in public. The government brutally suppressed protests against this demand.
Iran’s Islamic Penal Code states: “Women who appear in public places and on public roads without wearing the Islamic hijab will be sentenced to ten days to two months’ imprisonment or a fine of fifty thousand to five hundred (thousand) rials” (article 638). The article also authorizes a punishment of “two months’ imprisonment or up to 74 lashes” for “(any person) who openly commits a harām (sinful) act, in addition to the punishment provided for that act.” Women who do not wear headscarves or other clothing covering their bodies in public may be harassed by the “Morality Police” (MP), arrested, fined, and/or whipped. Many Iranians have expressed opposition to compulsory hijab, notably through the “White Wednesdays” campaign (launched in 2017), during which Iranians wear white clothing during street protests. Videos of these acts of defiance by women dubbed “The Street Girls of the Revolution” have gone viral around the world. In response, President Ebrahim Raïssi has only strongly strengthened the application of the hijab.
The state arrest and murder of Mahsa Amini seems all the more poignant in light of The Red Suitcase’s Oscar nomination. It is important to note the forensics of these tragic events. On September 13, 2022, morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, on the street in Tehran while she was visiting the city with her family. They took her away from her family and told Amini’s brother that they were detaining her for “inappropriate” hijab and taking her to an “education and guidance course.”
The police threw her into a van and, according to eyewitnesses, beat her to death in the vehicle while she on the way at the police station. It is suggested that police fabricated the crime scene to make it appear she had collapsed following a cardiac arrest. The body found was so badly bruised that its coffin had to be closed. Thousands of Iranians across the country took to the streets to protest against the regime following Amini’s death. Since this brutal action, public demonstrations have chanted “Women, life, freedom”, “Death to Khamenei”, “Death to the dictator”.
More and more women are going out without hijabs, with some publicly removing and even burning their hijabs. The regime quickly arrested the journalist who drew attention to Amini’s death (Niloufar Hamedi). She spent a period in solitary confinement in the notoriously brutal Evin Prison and lives daily at risk of further state action. There is a glimmer of hope that The Red Suitcase’s pre-eminence at major film festivals, including the resounding buzz of favor at the Oscars, may force religious leaders to mitigate the worst excesses of police brutality. Recently, unprecedented mass pardons have been granted to street protesters.
However, it would be naive to hope that this embattled regime is capable of real change. As La Valise Rouge shows, the only option for a lucky few is escape. Like the young girl in this Oscar-nominated film, the filmmakers had to flee Iran to truly express themselves. If there is to be a new Iranian protest filmography, it will likely be supported by expatriates rather than local film crews. Nonetheless, the unprecedented success of The Red Suitcase, one of the few Iranian films shortlisted for an Oscar in recent memory, demonstrates the potential of cinema as a vehicle for protest against a corrupt and brutal theocracy.
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