Leila

An Iranian film I watched while sitting in on the Beyond Hollywood J-term class. Leila is most definately a great example of a film rich in culture, conflict, and political agenda. And I think it to be near impossible to walk away from and not remember it, or to at least not respect it. That doesn't mean it's fast paced and exciting, or easy to watch. It is difficult, mostly due to subtitles, slow pace, and characters I wished would act differently.

Film is just like literature in that you start to see symbols, literary styles, and can draw different meanings from the same story. Leila is a great example of this, on the level of appealing both to humanity on the level of universal difficulties in relationships within families, and also on the level of being a political satire, which really only became apparent to me about halfway through.

It's a very simple story of a newly married Iranian woman, Leila, and the conflict that arises when she finds out she can't have children with her husband. This is particularly a problem because her husband is the only male in his family, and thus the only one who can carry on the family name (something very important in Iranian culture). He says he doesn't care, however. He loves Leila and will not remarry. Leila never really accepts the fact that her husband could not have children because of her barrenness. But this is mostly due to his mother, who is constantly calling and persuading and almost commanding him to marry someone else so the family can continue on.

How they all react towards each other's situations is really really well played out. That is really what makes this film work so well. And the director, as briefly mentioned after the movie, really knows his stuff visually. And it's too bad that the film has not been digitally transferred, otherwise we could a lot of shots a lot more clearly (it's really dark a fair portion of the movie).

Leila is a great Iranian film which speaks on multiple levels and is rich. For all the reasons I have listed, this one is definately a very great film.