Synopsis
The Circle (2000) is an Iranian drama by Jafar Panahi that you can watch online on iFILM. The film links several women's lives into a single chain, each one handing the story off to the next, while the camera trails them through the streets of Tehran with barely a pause.
It begins outside a maternity ward and moves on to women just released from prison, runaways with no papers, a mother with nowhere to leave her child. What they need is ordinary: to board a bus, buy a cigarette, find a place to sleep for one night. Each simple act runs into a rule, because without a man to vouch for them they are treated as if they barely exist. Panahi shoots almost without music, using non-professional actresses, which only tightens the sense of a trap closing.
The film took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was promptly banned at home. It's a hard, uncomfortable look at how women are stripped of rights in modern Iran — no moralizing, just the plain facts of daily life. One for viewers who value socially-charged art cinema and can sit with an ending that offers no comfort. Stream The Circle (2000) online on iFILM.
Starring
Comments 0