CIRCUMSTANCE

I wanted to like CIRCUMSTANCE a lot. I had first read about the film when one of my favorite magazines, Nylon, did a write up on the two female leads. They made the movie sound interesting and it is about subject matter I find interesting and important. Also, CIRCUMSTANCE is directed by a women, which is something I seek out in SIFF films. The director, Maryam Keshavarz, is also the writer and based it on her experiences growing up. Unfortunately my high expectations may have made it harder for me to enjoy this well-made, but still flawed film.

The story follows Atafeh and Shireen, two young women going to school in modern day Iran. Atafeh is from a wealthy and liberal family, her father is a graduate of Berkeley and he has a loving relationship with his daughter and wife. Shireen comes from an educated but less fortunate family. Her parents are not in the film, we know they were professors accused of being traitors and are, perhapes, dead. 

Atafeh takes Shireen into her world, bringing her on a family trip to the ocean, where the famles sit in their head scarves and long dresses while the men swim and lounge in small swim trunks. The girls also explore Tehran's underground scene of music, drugs and dancing. As their strong friendship grows so do their feelings and they become secret lovers. Trouble begins to brew when Atafeh's brother returns home after being in and out of rehab for drug addictions. He is very troubled and filled with anger. His anger drives him to join the Morality Police and soon he begins spying on his own family with cameras he places around their house. This leads to him following his sister and her friend and they are arrested by the Morality Police while driving home from an underground party. They are taken in, given a virginity test (which Atafeh fails) and then held until a high bail is paid. 

My biggest frustration with CIRCUMSTANCE was my desire for the filmmaker to more deeply explore the political issues in the film. I felt it was somewhat scattered at times, and introduced so many issues that it couldn't fully flesh them all out, and it left me wanting to better understand where the characters were coming from. For example, in one scene Shireen is riding in a car with a man who pulls over and demands she give her naked foot or he will deliver her to the police. Shireen has no choice but to hold back her revulsion as he moans and gropes her foot while playing with himself. This scene well represents the convoluted struggle of the hostility that men have in a sexually oppressive society when they desire a women.  But immediately following that scene Shireen is seen in a club, wearing a sexy outfit, wasted and making out with boys we have never seen before and she is without Atafeh, whom up until this point has been the one paying for their drugs, drinks and giving Shireen her outfits. I understood her state was a result of Shireen feeling violated but it made little sense how she suddenly had access to this world without her rich friend. 

I found the class difference between the girls to be one of the most rich elements to the story of these girls oppression. It is clear Atafeh has a safety net with her rich liberal father, and Shireen only has her very conservative Uncle who wants to marry her off in a hurry. But I felt Keshavarz pulled away from this issue at the end of the film, favoring dramatic emotional scenes of both girls crying, kissing, and fighting but lacking a deeper connection to how much their differences are because of Shireen's powerlessness. 

The cinematography is beautiful in CIRCUMSTANCE, as are both female leads. Many beautiful images of them laying next to each other, or standing in the wind with their head scarves blowing around their faces fill CIRCUMSTANCE, making it lush and sexy. I just felt at times the film was dealing with so many serious and fascinating political issues that got lost in all the scenes of how beautiful the two females are. The final third was weakest part of the film, because it has the most dramatic moments but at the same time felt the most removed from the characters. The end left me unclear as to what was driving them to make their individual choices.