TWO WOMEN (2000) (***1/2)

14 06 2008

Iranian filmmaker Tahmineh Milani opened eyes around the world with her frank look at the role of women in Iran in this gripping production. Her following film, THE HIDDEN HALF, landed her in prison for two weeks. Her most recent film CEASE FIRE has become the best selling movie in Iranian cinema history. For TWO WOMEN, on a low budget, she crafts a moving melodrama about two promising female architecture students whose lives eventual go in very different directions.

Roya (Marila Zare’i, THE FIFTH REACTION) works at an architecture firm with her supportive husband when she gets a phone call that her good friend from college Fereshteh (Niki Karimi, THE HIDDEN HALF) is at the hospital with her dying husband. Roya hasn’t heard from Fereshteh for years, because her prideful father (Reza Khandan) kept them apart. They original met when Roya asked Fereshteh, an exceptional student, for help with her Math class. They soon became inseparable friends. However, Fereshteh gains a stalker named Hassan (Mohammad Reza Forutan) who threatens violence on her unless she marries him. Later tragedy will lead to Fereshteh agreeing to a marriage with the older Ahmad (Atila Pesiani), whose paranoia leads to mental abuse.

Read the rest of this entry »