Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary focuses on two sisters of nomadic Bakhtiari people of Iran and the issues they face. Through interviews, the filmmaker reveals the contrasting views between the daughters and parents regarding the value of education and necessity of marriage. The daughters, Zahra and Shahnaz, each have an interest in pursuing an education to become a doctor and a teacher respectively before contemplating marriage. However, their aspirations are contrasted sharply by the parents’ ambivalence towards the value of education and their preference for the girls’ marriage to a “good suitor.”

The film opens with the view of a mountainous landscape where the family spends the summer. The camera follows the sisters accompanying their mother walking towards the salt spring to harvest salt. The voice over captures the conversation between the sisters about a fourteen year old classmate forced to marry a 74-year old man. The sisters express their empathy towards the girl and outrage on the dowry that benefited the girl’s family.

Back at their tent, the filmmaker interviews the parents and a brother, who is visiting, in addition to the sisters. Zahra and Shahnaz express their aspirations to become professionals instead of marrying at a young age. The father supports the girls in their presence; however, when the girls leave, he expresses his true and more traditional views about marriage despite his son’s support for his sisters’ education and postponement of marriage. The father articulates that education for girls may lead to independence and steer them away from the traditional lifestyle including rigidly defined gender roles.

Although off camera, the insistent presence of the filmmaker as interlocutor appears to be contrived and artificial at times. This impression is made worse by the fact that his relationship with the family is unexplained. The Bakhtiari people’s gender specific ways of life are well represented especially at the salt farm scenes. While barehanded women gather salt crystals by scraping the surface of the salt ponds with rudimentary tools and shape the salt into oval mounds to dry afterwards, men’s role consists merely to sell the finished product, offering an insight into unquestioned tradition that privileges men unconditionally. Cultural elements such as the headdresses covered with traditional embroidery, vibrant and exquisite fabrics used in dresses and veils are expressive of the women themselves. Recommended for discussion on Middle Eastern studies, gender equality, women’s education, women’s rights, and women and Islam.