Tehran Taboo

Tehran Taboo (Persian: تهران تابو‎) is a 2017 Persian-language German-Austrian animated romance[1] film directed by Ali Soozandeh.

Tehran Taboo
Film poster
Directed byAli Soozandeh
Produced byFrank Geiger
Ali Samadi Ahadi
Mark Fencerm
Armin Hofmann
Antonin Svoboda
Bruno Wagner
Written byAli Soozandeh
StarringNegar Mona Alizadeh
Bilal Yasar
Arash Marand
Zahra Amir Ebrahimi
Music byAli N. Askin
CinematographyMartin Gschlacht
Edited byFrank Geiger
Andrea Mertens
Distributed byCelluloid Dreams
Release date
  • 20 May 2017 (2017-05-20) (Cannes)
  • 16 November 2017 (2017-11-16) (Germany)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryAustria
Germany
LanguagePersian

Animated through rotoscope, the film tells the story of three women and a male musician living in Tehran and their desperate attempts at coping with Iran's strict religious laws and resulting double standards.[2] The film was screened in the International Critics' Week section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival,[3][4] and was released in the United States in February 2018.[5]

Plot

The four principal characters in the film are:

  • Pari, who has been forced into prostitution because of poverty; her husband is an imprisoned drug addict.
  • Her neighbor Sara, who is pregnant and seeking work against the wishes of her husband.
  • Babak, a musician who has had sex with a young woman, Donya, at an underground party.

Pari cannot get a divorce without her husband's permission, which he refuses. She has been forced into prostitution, and engages in sex acts accompanied by her six-year-old son, Elias.

When she goes before a judge in the Islamic Revolutionary Court to seek a divorce despite the lack of approval from her husband, the judge barters a concubine arrangement and houses her in an apartment he owns. There she meets Sara and her husband.

In a separate subplot, Donya tells Babak she is about to marry another man. Because of Iranian taboos, which expect women at marriage to be virgins, she and Babak are forced to raise money for a crude, illicit operation to restore the appearance of virginity. She later tells Pari that she is not getting married, but instead is being sold to a trafficker to Dubai, and that virgins command higher prices.

The film concludes with Sara's downfall. That is caused by a gag sex call placed to a janitor by Pari on Sara's phone, which is traced back to Sara. Sara is ordered out of the house by her husband. She commits suicide. Babak flees the country.

Cast
  • Elmira Rafizadeh as Pari
  • Zahra Amir Ebrahimi as Sara
  • Arash Marandi as Babak
  • Bilal Yasar as Elias
  • Negar Mona Alizadeh as Donya
  • Hasan Ali Mete as Judge

Production

Soozandeh, who had previously produced short films and animation for documentaries,[6] has said that inspiration for the film was a conversation he overheard between two young Iranians on a train concerning their experiences with women in Iran. One of them talked about a prostitute who was working with her six-year-old child. The anecdote about the prostitute and child was the "lightning bolt" that made him want to tell this story, and it became one of the plot elements in Tehran Taboo.[7][8]

Soozandeh used the rotoscoping process because it was impossible to shoot the movie in Tehran, and other cities have their own traits that made them inappropriate for a realistic film set in Iran. To surmount that issue he used rotoscoping, which combines live action with animation. Actors were filmed against a green backdrop, and animation was added to allow insertion of background details specific to Tehran.[8] He has said that his aim in making the film was to inspire social change in Iran.[9]

Reception

The film opened in the U.S. to generally favorable reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 21 reviews, and an average rating of 7.7/10.[10] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100 from 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[11]

New York Times critic Ben Kenigsberg said the movie "lays bare the double standards that surround sex in Iran." Its "confrontational quality," he said, was set in the opening scene, in which the prostitute Pari is hired to perform sexual services by an anonymous client who, "moments later expresses horror when he spots a man holding hands with his daughter." He called the film "brisk and bracing" but that "subtlety and aesthetic elegance" were lacking.[12]

The Hollywood Reporter reviewer, Deborah Young, called the film "an audacious debut that could pique the curiosity of audiences beyond festivals." She praised the actress playing the prostitute Pari, saying that there was "something that recalls Anna Magnani’s earthiness and great heart in Rafizadeh’s many-hued performance." But Young said that the film is overtly political and sometimes there was "a sense of too much."[13]

Awards
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References
  1. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tehran-taboo-2018
  2. Amidi, Amid (17 September 2017). "Kino Lorber To Release 'Tehran Taboo' In United States". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  3. "Selection of the 56th International Critics' Week". Semaine de la Critique. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  4. "56th International Critics' Week Press Kit" (PDF). Semaine de la Critique. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  5. Movies News Desk. "Animated Drama TEHRAN TABOO Has US Theatrical Premiere This February". Broadway World. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  6. "Meet Your Maker - Ali Soozandeh - Animation is Film". Animation is Film. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  7. Rothe, E. Nina (12 June 2017). "Breaking the Rules in Iran: Ali Soozandeh Talks 'Tehran Taboo' in Cannes". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  8. "Ali Soozandeh • Director - Interview". Cineuropa. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  9. Makin, Shira (14 February 2018). "The Iranian Film That Breaks the Taboo on Sexuality". Haaretz. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  10. "Tehran Taboo (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  11. "Tehran Taboo Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  12. Kenigsberg, Ben (13 February 2018). "Review: 'Tehran Taboo' Exposes Double Standards About Sex in Iran". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  13. Young, Deborah. "'Tehran Taboo': Film Review | Cannes 2017". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  14. "Tehran Taboo". Kino Lorber.
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