Tabous - Zohre & Manouchehr (2004) User Reviews

Interesting Look At Sexuality In Iran

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 28 August 2014]

Tabous (the title card on the copy I saw read simply, Zohre and Manouchehr) is a French co-production, shot clandestinely in Iran, that combines contemporary documentary footage with recreated dramatic scenes based on a 19th century Persian poem by Iraj Mirza. It opens dramatically with a single phallic image by the shore, then a whole row of them, against which a lightly clad woman walks. We later see her atop a country house in a deserted landscape. This provocative beginning is juxtaposed with interviews in which men and women talk about virginity and the double standard. A doctor testifies about women getting their hymens "restored" so they'll technically still be virgins. At one point, I was amused to hear that among some of these frustrated young people the code for having sex is "going to Las Vegas," whereas for merely flirting it's "going to San Francisco.! We return to the story part of the movie, where the woman, wearing a red veil, sees a man bathing. This part of the film has a different texture, it appears to have been shot with another kind of camera (both Super 8mm and video were used, Beausoleil and Sony) and the color contrast between the blue sky and the red desert sands offers an exoticism reminiscent, at least to this Western viewer, of Pasolini's Arabian Nights. The man is a warrior and at first resists the woman's advances. Meanwhile back in modern Iran we hear of something called "Sigheh," a temporary marriage where men are allowed to have sex before their real marriage. A serpent enters the scene back in the past story, suggesting that this part of the work could be construed as an Iranian Adam and Eve. After we hear from an older, fundamentalist man, the poetic section concludes with the couple, making love, dissolving underneath a tree. I found all of this of much interest and liked the way it was put together.

A movie full of interviews and a story line based on 19th century Iranian poet, Iraj Mirza.

[bahramhossein-526-681118 · 10/10 · 12 October 2013]

Contrary to the previous reviewer, i believe this movie is all about truth. I believe that truth has nth to do with facts. it's not a report, it's a documentary MOVIE! Ms. Farahani has been able to show the truth by finding the extremes in the society and by making them trust her to speak out their minds revealed the truth of a society. definitely if she had interviewed students and scholars the result would've been totally different and very far from truth. because the middle class and the NORMAL people know how to lie their way out of normality. She has earned my WOW for sure. From the religious lady who thinks she knows the truth about her husband because he has confessed to have masturbated before marriage, to the couple who hide their affair and eventually confess to having an affair which is made legal by "Siqeh" _ a law of Islam which allows having a sex affair if certain sentences are said without any need to any clergy man. The attitudes toward sex are extreme but at the same time deeply ingrained in our culture. One of my favorite characters is the transsexual who believes in chastity and virginity as virtues but thinks is okay to have an#l sex . It's awesome, but you have to be an unbiased middle eastern to enjoy it fully.

this is not the real Iran

[dew54321 · 1/10 · 10 September 2006]

This documentary is far from truth. Iranian society is very diverse, of course you can find a minority who think and behave like that, but just a minority! people interviewed in this documentary are restricted to: religious fanatics,clergies,blue-collars,prostitutes, and trans-genders!! If Ms. Farahani had interviewed some college students, scholars, and more intellectual type of people, the whole conveyed image would certainly be different.

Such directors, writers, etc., in the cover of feminism or women's rights, try to demonstrate a fanatic and exaggerated version of developing societies to the outside world, just to catch their "wow!" and become famous.