Across “Lemon Tree,” “The Syrian Bride,” and “Shelter,” Israeli director Eran Riklis has built a powerful body of work, telling the challenging stories of Middle Eastern women from different walks of life. With Reading Lolita in Tehran—a poignant adaptation of the memoirs of Iranian-American author and professor Azar Nafisi—he adds a simple, but generally understanding, similarly thought-provoking entry to his oeuvre, warmly conveying Nafisi’s experience in post-revolutionary Iran to the world. Sensitivity screen.
Unfolding in cross-sections and big jumps in time that sometimes seem too abrupt, Marjorie David’s screenplay follows Nafisi (Farahani’s speech is telling) over the course of 24 years, after the young academic with a new American degree has settled down in Tehran with her husband. Bijan (Arash Marandi) is set in 1979, in the wake of the country’s Islamic Revolution. The title card initially shows the couple returning to their homeland. Historically, it was a time of hope in Iran, as many Iranians living abroad returned to their country with false promises.
One such promise is to initially place Nafisi at a prestigious university in the capital, where she will teach literature and Western classics such as “Huckleberry Finn,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Lolita” in soon-to-be segregated co-ed classes. (Some of these books are also used as chapter titles for the film.) In the beginning, there were only a few women we would see on the streets or classrooms wearing the hijab (traditional Islamic dress) or headscarf. But, along with Nafisi and the other women in her class, we sense a conservative change in the air when men begin to talk about the ways women should dress in increasingly entitled language. “One day, this will be the law,” says one student to several angry but stunned women who have silenced them.
Nevertheless, Nafisi continues with her lessons, having her open-minded students (men among them) discuss the moral dilemmas that lie at the heart of her selected literary works. But it does not take long for the religious right to take to the streets and interfere with the integrity of its curriculum. Some signs at the university say: “Purify the curriculum,” attacking the freedoms of secular women who choose to dress the way they have always dressed. “My grandmother was the most devout Muslim I knew,” Nafisi told a security guard who was blocking her path because of her exposed head. She never missed a prayer. But she wore her scarf because she was religious, not because it was a symbol.” Clearly drawn from living memory, this scene is among the most powerful of Reading Lolita in Tehran, a scene that rang true to this secular Muslim critic who has also witnessed (and participated in) many similar discussions about the pressures women face in societies Where Muslims from different backgrounds and different views on expressing their faith live side by side.
Other scenes seem more crude in the way they overstate the film’s themes. Among them is a deliberation when the female students compare the oppressive streets of Iran to the abusive character of Humbert in “Lolita,” a reference so obvious that it seems redundant given the story’s main theme. Other instances occur when the timeline suddenly jumps from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, with no noticeable change in costumes or hairstyles. However, Riklis crafts a number of intimate and unforgettable scenes between Nafisi and her female students, when Nafisi quits her job at the university and decides to secretly teach literature to a group of curious women. The impressive supporting cast includes Mina Cavani (“No Bears”) as Nesreen and Zara Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider”) as Sanaz.
Outside, they suffer from patriarchy, misogyny and even physical violence – the scene that follows Sanaz’s doctor’s visit and the horrific violence she is subjected to is particularly poignant. But in Nafisi’s safe house, in the company of a dazzling array of fruits and pastries (all captured through Hélène Louvare’s poetic lens), the women tap into their deepest thoughts through literature, discuss their sufferings, sing and dance, and discuss liberating ideas. Even sex.
Elsewhere, Riklis depicts Nafisi’s normal life and the common incidents of oppression to which she is accustomed. (In it, we get a taste of what it’s like to watch a heavily censored version of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sacrifice.) The story also introduces us to Nafisi’s friendship with a mysterious man (Shahbaz Noshir), an intellectual colleague she meets during her stay. Escaping the street protest she adds to her circle as a mentor. Riklis carefully charts the course of the duo’s rich emotional relationship, and is not shy about hinting at some sexual tension between the two.
Unlike “Shayda” and “The Sacred Fig Seed” and other recent films about the diverse experiences of Iranian women around the world, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” is an inherently political film when viewed in the context of the country’s real life. 22-year-old Mahsa Amini dies in 2022. Amini was reportedly beaten while in police custody because she did not wear her hijab as required, a murder that sparked fierce protests across Iran and the rest of the world. In two scenes, Riklis reminds the viewer of Amini when Farahani looks in the mirror, puts on the hijab and then takes it off. Nafisi’s return to America ends in the early 2000s (because she refuses to raise her children in an authoritarian environment), and Riklis’s adaptation doesn’t always culminate in the grand emotions that make up Nafisi’s tale. But it is still considered a respectful, rebellious and deeply feminine practice.