It
sounds creepy, but it was not uncommon practice for Iranian men to follow prospective
wives as part of their due diligence.
The men were supposed to be cautious and the women were supposed to be
grateful. One revolution later, certain
things remain the same, if not more so. As
a result, one young woman jumps to conclusions when she recognizes a
distinguished looking man haunting her street in Parviz Sayyad’s Dead End, which screens during the Asia
Society’s Iranian New Wave 1960s-1970s film
retrospective.
Pretty
but hopelessly naïve, the young woman living with her widowed mother has
strangely not received much attention from marriageable men. Initially, she is somewhat confused when she
notices the tall mystery man loitering outside their flat. Since they live on the titular dead end
street, there is not much to bring him to their neighborhood. Assuming he has honorable intentions, she
quickly starts fantasizing about their potential union. However, Sayyad constantly slips viewers
hints the unmarried woman’s hopes will not be consummated.
Considered
a not-so veiled critique of the Shah’s rule, Dead End remains banned by the Islamist regime. It is not hard to see why, given its overt
themes of surveillance. There is also a
rather biting subtext regarding gender inequalities that is even more
subversive under the Revolutionary government.
There
is indeed plenty of open anger in Dead
End, but it never sacrifices the highly personal drama for the sake of
polemics. This is first and foremost the woman’s story, as painful and demoralizing
as we expect it will be. Mary Apik’s lead performance is exquisitely sensitive,
conveying a lifetime of disappointments and the acute vulnerability of her
circumstances. It is a necessarily restrained performance, but it is hard to
shake its quiet power. In contrast,
Parviz Bahador projects an apt air of danger yet is also quite charismatic in a
coolly severe sort of way as the man following her.
