God Didn't Give Me Children

film review by Jon Reinsch

Some of the world's greatest films have centered on a boundlessly self-sacrificing woman. Examples are Mizoguchi's The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum and Von Trier's Breaking the Waves. The latest addition to this subgenre is Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui's Leila.

The story is simple: Leila and Reza are a happily married couple. But when Leila learns that she cannot conceive a child, her mother-in-law begins a relentless campaign for her son to take a second wife. What's fascinating is that she enlists Leila herself in this cause, going against the wishes of virtually everyone else.

We've become accustomed to Iranian films about children: from Where is the Friend's Home? to The Mirror to Children of Heaven to The Apple. Perhaps Iranian filmmakers are naturally drawn to such subjects; perhaps political constraints force this choice. At any rate, here's a film about the absence of a child, and its impact on a marriage.

The family life depicted in this film is in many respects quite appealing. For one thing, there's the making of sholeh-zard pudding that opens and closes the film. (Damn, that stuff looks good!) Although the couple may never so much as touch in front of the camera, their affection for one another is palpable. Even Reza's habit, after meeting a new "prospect," of describing her faults -- to Leila's delight -- contributes to this. The dark side intrudes in the form of a mother-in-law from hell. We learn to dread the ring of the phone.

There are certainly feminist implications here. But Mehrjui's film is a character study, not a treatise. Within Leila swirl conflicts between romantic love and duty, assertiveness and passivity -- conflicts with no clear dividing line. She yields to her mother-in-law, but stands up to her husband. She tries to tell herself, "God didn't give me children; instead He has given me endless patience and endurance."

Although the film can be viewed as a kind of love triangle, this is Leila's story. She is played by the astonishingly beautiful Leila Hatami. It's often said of some actress that "the camera loves her," but how often does said actress wear clothing that obscures all but her face? When actors speak a language not our own, it's more difficult to appreciate their work. Still, without knowing a single word of Farsi, one can hear the sweet expressiveness in Hatami's voice. And her downcast eyes require no subtitles.

This film is photographed and edited adventurously, with liberal use of jump cuts. We see and hear a psychological reality, not a literal one. We often hear Leila's thoughts. When she's on the phone, we hear both sides of the conversation -- as Leila would. Many scenes in the couple's home are bathed in a reddish glow, which sometimes explodes to take over the whole screen. (Leila reflects: "Like our lives, the house had taken on a different hue.") Characters at times speak directly to the camera. Sounds from one scene leak into the next, just as in real life, when our thoughts fail to keep pace with our movements. The images are simple: a pot of tea overflowing, pearls falling into a sink, and faces, faces, faces. In one shot, we see nothing, but suddenly become aware -- as if our eyes had adjusted to the darkness -- that a face is peering out at us. These uncluttered images build in impact, all the way to the superbly ambiguous ending.

Perhaps critics shouldn't build a film up too much, so as to allow viewers to discover it for themselves, and not create unrealistic expectations. After all, it's very subjective -- just what moves people. But there are artistic experiences -- Bach's Third Brandenburg, say -- in which every note seems mathematically predetermined. Leila approaches that kind of crystalline perfection.

Waiting for the cage to open

Another film that begins on an idyllic note is Deepa Mehta's Earth, the successor to her Fire. Earth is about the partition of India in 1947 as seen through the eyes of Lenny, an 8-year-old girl in a prosperous Parsee family. This family is at the eye of a storm that tears apart Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.

Much of this film is in English, but it's heavily accented, and there's a lot of work involved in sorting out the various characters and their ethnicities. Pay close attention at the beginning, or you may be lost. For me, the characters came alive on a second viewing.

If the reserve of Leila leaves you exasperated, then by all means see this film. Mehta has a gift for eroticism -- even in a scene of kite-flying.

The screenplay makes repeated use of animal metaphors: one of a woman's admirers tells her "We all hover around you, like moths around a lamp." Lenny's mother, explaining their neutrality, compares the Parsees to chameleons, assuming the shade of those around them. And in an ominous reference to the beast within, unleashed by partition, we hear of the lion in the zoo: "He just lies there, waiting for the cage to open."

If the partition of India seems remote today (especially to Americans), consider that it's hardly a dead issue. While filming a riot scene for this film, the extras were so carried away that they set off the real thing. India and Pakistan both now possess nuclear weapons. Furthermore, these problems are not confined to one region of the world. Quite recently, we've seen the flare-up of ethnic hatreds and the cynical response of the so-called great powers. Filmmaker Mehta declares that "we hoped to understand why war is waged and why friends turn enemies, and why battles are invariably fought on women's bodies."

These two films will play September 24-30: Leila at the Varsity, Earth at the Egyptian.