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Cutting Through Rocks review – the female firebrand fighting the patriarchy in rural Iran

Cutting Through Rocks review – the female firebrand fighting the patriarchy in rural Iran

Sara Shahverdi refuses to accept the norms of her deeply conservative village as she becomes its first female councillor. But for every step forward, as this dynamic documentary shows, a further obstacle is thrown in her path Being the first anything is a point of pride, but also a burden. Sara Shahverdi has carved her own path through a deeply conservative village in rural Iran. An experienced midwife who has delivered more than 400 babies, she has always done what is not permitted of women: to ride a motorcycle in public, to get a divorce and to live alone. Now she has taken on another herculean task: to become the first female councillor to be elected in this part of the country. Staying close to its subject, Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s dynamic documentary captures the full force of Shahverdi’s formidable personality. An early scene shows her barging into the home of her brothers, demanding they return the rights of land inheritance to her sisters. The film expands from Shahverdi’s private issues to take in the full scope of patriarchal oppression in her community. Here, schoolgirls as young as 12 are forced into marriage, divorce is nearly impossible to obtain, and married women have little legal protection. Shahverdi’s resounding election victory is a beacon of hope, but even her celebrations are overshadowed by misogyny. Her male supporters can dance in the streets, while women have to film the revelries through a barred window. Continue reading...

Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa review – behind the scenes at the nail salon

Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa review – behind the scenes at the nail salon

This impressive novel shows how war, colonialism and migration play out in a small room where everyone’s name tag says Susan Pick a Colour, the first novel from Laotian-Canadian poet and short-story writer Souvankham Thammavongsa, takes place over one summer’s day in a nail bar; implicitly in Canada, but it could be in any city. The narrative potential of such businesses, where customers pay for a particular service and expect to receive other kinds of care, has been explored in films and novels set in taxis, hairdressers and, in Katja Oskamp’s Marzahn, Mon Amour, a chiropody clinic. Such settings open rich questions: who has the power, the one who pays or the one who shapes the customer’s body, often with alarmingly sharp implements? How human can such exchanges of cash for care or “beauty” be? What do we buy and what do we sell in these transactions? The novel sets out its stall plainly. Narrated by Ning, the salon owner and a retired boxer, the prelude ends, “Looking at the two of us, them sitting on a chair above me, and me down low, you’d think I am not in charge. But I am. I know everything about them, whether or not they tell me.” All first-person narrators are unreliable, and we are implicitly invited to question this assertion. With more certainty at the beginning and less at the end, Ning thinks she knows everything about everyone, including her employees. The workers judge and mock their customers, relying on clients not understanding “our language”. (Which language is not specified, and perhaps doesn’t matter, certainly not to most of the customers.) Seen through Ning’s eyes, everyone is trying to get what they can for as little as possible in a system with small room for humanity. Continue reading...