Iranian director Nader Saeivar, working with feted dissident film-maker Jafar Panahi as his co-writer and editor, nails his political colours to the mast with this sober low-key thriller inspired by the Women Life Freedom protest movement that emerged after Mahsa Amini was killed in the custody of Iran’s so-called “morality police” in September 2022. The Witness is a solidly crafted drama about how multiple generations of free-spirited women have been repeatedly brutalised and betrayed by the regime. A little slow and creaky in places, the film’s worthy intentions are not always matched by dramatic force, but the subject matter is urgent and the treatment feels heartfelt. Though highly unlikely to screen in Tehran any time soon, this German-Austrian-Turkish co-production is currently enjoying a healthy international festival run, with screenings in Cairo this week.
The Witness opens and closes with scenes of women dancing, a joyously defiant gesture whose tragic undertones only come into shaper relief as the drama unfolds. Zara (Hana Kamkar) runs a women’s dance school in Tehran, as Saeivar establishes with an elegant opening tracking shot that glides full circle through a choreography session. Watching her with quiet pride is Tarlan Ghorbani (Maryam Boubani), a gently determined woman of around 70. A stoic survivor from the idealistic wing of the 1979 revolution, Tarlan still fights for human rights in her role as a union organiser and school board member. She also shares a strong maternal bond with Zara, though she is not her biological mother, having informally adopted and raised her after she was orphaned in childhood.
Behind her impassive facade, Tarlan is carrying several heavy burden. Having long ago sacrificed career for principles, she now lives in a cramped, mouse-infested, scuzzy rental apartment. Her hot-headed thirtysomething son Salar (Abbas Imani) is in jail for unpaid debts, and desperately pleads with her to help. He also guilt trips his mother, blaming her for his money problems and stunted prospects. “I’m inheriting the consequences of your political games,” he complains, “we lost our large house due to your political activities.”
Meanwhile, Tarlan is increasingly anxious about her god-daughter’s fractious home life. Zara routinely comes into dance school covered in bruises from her bullying husband Solat (Nader Naderpour), whose feelings about his wife dancing in public have hardened since he became the family breadwinner thanks to a new high-status job with shady government connections. But their stories conflict, with Sarlat insisting he is the real victim of Zara’s violent temper, deception and infidelity.
One day, when Tarlan glimpses what looks like a dead body in Solat’s house, she fears the worst and reports him to the police for killing Zara. But with minimal evidence, no body, and the two women not being biologically related, her claims have limited power under Iranian law. More importantly, with Solat now protected by his government connections, the scales of justice are heavily weighted in his favour. Before long Tarlan has agents following her, pressuring her to drop the charges, blackmailing her with threats of lawsuits and worse. If Solat has killed Zara, it seems he did so with impunity.
Saeivar and Panahi deliver a sturdy, thoughtful, old-fashioned morality play that moves from murder mystery to revenge thriller in its final act. Filmed in a minor-key naturalistic style, the plot feels slightly laboured, the characters schematic, and the energy levels a little too muted for such highly charged subject matter. That said, Boubani has a magnetically stern, statuesque screen presence, and there are flashes of visual poetry in the mix here.
The film’s most powerful dramatic sequence, however, occurs during the end credits, which features real social media footage of girls dancing in public, some defiantly showing their hair: Mahsa Amini, Nika Shakarami, Hadi Nafaji, Aylar Hagghi and Sarina Esmaeilazadeh. These are just a few of the young women, mostly teenagers, murdered by the Iranian regime in the last two years, either for breaking conservative dress coded or protesting in the wake of Amini’s killing. All were beaten, tortured or shot to death, with leaked reports suggesting some were even sexually molested first.
With breathtaking cynicism, the Iranian government have tried to blame all these deaths on suicides, random accidents or violence by armed protestors, and often refuse to release the bodies until the families of their victims endorse this official narrative. The contrast between the innocent joy of these dancing clips and the corrupt, sadistic, misogynistic, cowardly men who see young women having fun as a threat is both heartbreaking and enraging. The Witness is a quietly furious, well-intentioned film, but the repulsive child-killers who currently rule Iran deserve much more fiery condemnation than any mere film can deliver.
Director: Nader Saeivar
Screenplay: Jafar Panahi, Nader Saeivar
Cast: Maryam Boubani, Nader Naderpour, Hana Kamkar, Abbas Imani, Ghazal Shojaei, Fahrid Eshaghi
Cinematography: Rouzbeh Raiga
Editing: Jafar Panahi
Music: Karwan Marouf
Producers: Said Nur Akkus, Silvana Santamaria, Arash T. Riahi, Sabine Grüber, Emre Oskay, Timur Savci
Production companies: ArtHood Films (Germany), Golden Girls Films (Vienna), Sky Films (Turkey)
World sales: ArtHood Films
Venue: Cairo International Film Festival
In Farsi
100 minutes
