About time this topic got dug up again.

The Hidden Half (2001) - Tahmineh Milani

Well I began to wonder if I had peaked in Iranian film. All too often the films are merely stories of the poor and unfortunate, depressing tales of hardship and adversity. I was yet to see an Iranian film that showed anyone with a slight degree of wealth or even one that showed Iranian's as somewhat comparable to western citizens. That changed with The Hidden Half, a distinctly feminist film that shows an Iran not torn assunder by poverty and famine, but by ideology.

This is a daring film, one that makes political references rarely if ever shown in a film FROM Iran. It takes place during the cultural revolution of the late seventies and early eighties, and it shows women not just as capable of being independant thinkers, but even more so than men. It is comparable to the political films of Godard (minus the overt artiness) and socially consious American movies of the sixties. Because of that I believe the film works, but more than those films this happens to show the aftermath of ideology. It shows what happens when the idealism dies, and how it happens. This is the most important aspect of the film imo. All too often in those films of the time we see the idealist uncompromising, but we realize from history that those revolutionaries don't last.

The life of the film is from director Tahmineh Milani, who was arrested during the making of the film. True to the nature of the story, her crime was punishable by death. Luckily due to her popularity she was released and the film was able to be made. Like many Iranian films though, this seemed to find its audience outside of Iran. Like Milani's previous film Two Women, this stars Niki Karimi, who may very well be the most beautiful Iranian woman I've ever seen. There isn't a great deal of makeup here, and 17 years past, the characters basically look the same. I think it's more thematic than anything. Hard to show how ideas can't change, so instead lets show how people don't change. Sure there is a transition, but it is the essential person that remains the same. Karimi's Fereshteh (same name from Two Women) was made by her ideology. The person she is deep down inside was formed at this crucial time when she was still 19, even if her beliefs have remained internal.

I'd say The Hidden Half is a remarkable film. Sure there is something of a love story, that can offer melodrama, but for once I'd rather see romance be melodramatic than people starving and being exploited as so many Iranian films do. To me, this film represents a potential turning point for Iranian film, just as Rosellini's Voyage in Italy did for Italian film. The story of the poor and underprivalleged can only go so far, a different aspect of society needs to be examined in a national cinema, and with this film perhaps we can start to see a more idea driven Iranian film, rather than one so painfully immitating the Neorealist movement.

Grade A