Educational Media Reviews Online

This unique documentary focuses upon an American woman’s experience of visiting her new husband’s family in Tehran. Melissa has never been to her husband’s country before, but she is fairly well-versed in Farsi and is open to learning what she can about the people and their culture. While at her mother-in-law’s home, she meets Shahrbanoo, a woman who comes in to clean once a week. Shahrbanoo invites Melissa to a family gathering at her home in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tehran. This gives Melissa an opportunity to learn more about Iranian home life, culture and political attitudes. While at Shahrbanoo’s home Melissa engages in many lively debates with the family. There are heated discussions about women’s place in society, American foreign policy, and the issue of martyrdom. Melissa also learns to cook some traditional dishes and is instructed on how to dress as a proper Muslim woman. Throughout her time with Shahrbanoo, the two develop a friendship that bridges the cultural gap between them.

This video presents an interesting glimpse into the culture of Tehran and into the mindset of some of its people. Through the interactions with Shahrbanoo and her family, Melissa comes to better understand the dynamics of gender roles and the important place that faith holds in these peoples’ lives. She also gains some interesting insights into the attitudes Iranians hold toward America. While Melissa and Shahrbanoo come from very different worlds, their ability to discuss and debate helps them to develop a mutual respect for each other that sustains their friendship even after Melissa returns to America.

While the video is full of extremely interesting information, technically it is somewhat flawed. Scenes begin and end in a rather haphazard fashion, and the video fades to black between scenes at odd times. The film would benefit from some additional voice-over narration to provide more context and to act as a bridge from one scene to another. The majority of the video is in Farsi, with brief moments of English interspersed. The Farsi is subtitled. Unfortunately, the subtitles are also somewhat problematic. The white subtitles are not always backed by dark colors and they are too small, making them difficult to read. Also, even though the film is full of conversations between multiple speakers, the subtitles do not denote who is speaking. This makes the conversations difficult to follow at times.

These technical problems notwithstanding, this video is still an interesting and useful look into a culture that is largely unknown to Americans. It gives the viewer a chance to experience Iranian daily life firsthand and to hear the opinions that sometimes don’t make it into the national headlines. It is also a charming testament to how common elements of human nature can bridge cultural gaps and can make friends out of widely disparate people. This video would be a useful addition to any academic library or a larger public library that wishes to build up a collection of multicultural materials.