Feminine Power in Iranian Cinema:
The Wind Will Carry Us
(excerpt)
Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us opens in transit, as a Tehrani film crew seeks out the remote Kurdish village of Siah Dareh. A jeep comes into view in an extreme long shot, tracing the landscape as its occupants discuss directions: they must search out a lone, distinct tree that will signal where to turn. The ensuing narrative follows journalist Behzad and his colleagues as they attempt to document the villagers’ mourning rituals following the death of a prominent matriarch. Upon arriving, they learn that the woman, Mrs. Malek, simply refuses to die.
Behzad is then forced to wait impatiently for the funeral, observing mundane village life rather than death.
Each interaction with the village’s female inhabitants challenges his traditional beliefs surrounding gender roles, as the women exude a strength and defiance neither he, nor audiences accustomed to Kiarostami’s male-dominated oeuvre, expected. While the female characters are relegated to child rearing, household duties, and patiently serving men, their presence (both literal and figurative) pervades every frame. As Behzad attempts to confine every woman he meets to a visual frame, each one actively resists being objectified by the male gaze and its counterpart, the camera.
The female figurations throughout the film “evoke oneness with nature and an inner harmony that is not quite present in the male characters” (Saeed). Viewers observe the village women mostly confined to the background, yet they are also actively present, including characters such as Behzad’s boss, Mrs. Godarzi, who remains in Tehran but calls multiple times per day to check on his progress. Indeed, when she does call, Behzad must drop everything to drive to higher ground in order to get cell reception. Additionally, a number of female figures are hidden beneath stacks of hay as they plow the land and milk cows.
It is important to note the core of the film’s narrative: the desire for the death of a woman. While the reasoning behind Behzad and his crew members’ trip to the remote village is initially shrouded in mystery, the true purpose of their journey is slowly unveiled: they aim to film and record the funeral procession of matriarch, Mrs. Malek, and the mourning rituals that follow.
Only later do we learn that Behzad’s fascination with Mrs. Malek’s death has more to do with a process called “scarification,” in which local village women contend with one another to claim a level of closeness with the deceased by physically scarring their faces. Siah Dareh is built on a hillside, and movement here is frequently vertical. Upon arrival, Behzad must climb to reach the center of the village, though his guide, Farzad, admits there may be an easier way. He takes Behzad higher and higher across the cream-colored roofs to reach a secluded spot from which he can peer down on Mrs. Malek's residence and open window. Once she dies, he will be able to film the ancient mourning rite of scarification, which represents the village's dark secret, and is a symbol of its vehemently traditional, even superstitious, beliefs.
The nature of Behzad's vantage point and means of getting there make his approach not only comic, but also intrusive, even inappropriate. He is, in a sense, acting as a spy, only further emphasized by his own secrecy about why he has come—to find buried treasure, he tells Farzad. Perplexingly, he even appears eager for his colleagues to remain ignorant about the state of Mrs. Malek's health.