Based on real-life experiences, this tender and harrowing movie is an impressive and deeply felt debut telling the story of an Iranian mother and her daughter trying to rebuild their lives in Australia.
This film originally came out right before I departed for my overseas holiday, but luckily I got another chance to watch it at ACMI Cinemas, one of my favourite movie theatres in Melbourne that I don’t get to visit often.
A few filmmakers seem to be ditching the traditional widescreen format for the almost-square aspect ratio recently, and Noora Niasari’s astonishingly confident first feature does likewise, giving this domestic drama what feels like a closer focus and a sense of claustrophobia in its tenser moments.
Set in the 90s and based on Niasari’s own family history, it focuses on Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), an Iranian mother fleeing her abusive husband. Hossein (Osamah Sami) plans to go back to Iran with his family after he finishes studying medicine in Australia, but Shayda has different ideas about her future: she files for divorce and comes to seek refuge in a women’s shelter with their six-year-old daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia).
Despite some story developments in the later half, this is not a plot-driven movie, more like an up-close, intimate look at one woman’s circumstances that are both culturally specific and depressingly universal. There are no flashbacks to Shayda’s old life, and no explicit portrayal of domestic abuse, but enough is inferred to make you viscerally feel Shayda’s dread when she’s forced to meet her husband face-to-face. There are also difficult conversations with her mother back in Iran, who at first tries to convince Shayda to give Hossein another chance, and a mixed reaction from her own ethnic community in Australia.
We follow Shayda as she tries to create some sense of normality, and despite the heavy sense of fear and uprooted uncertainty there are also genuine moments of joy: mother and daughter sharing heartwarming scenes, exuberant moments of solidarity and bonding between women at the shelter, a new haircut that lifts Shayda’s spirits and gives her a sense of renewal. A theme of new beginnings is woven in unobtrusively through the celebrations of Nowruz, Persian New Year (I’ve never heard of the Persian fire-jumping ritual, which brings to mind the old Russian pagan traditions during summer solstice).
The story unfolds organically in an unhurried fashion, without a single false note, letting the scenes and moments breathe without feeling overlong. Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s powerful leading performance, full of dignity and grace, strength and fragility, is without a doubt the movie’s greatest asset. Her enormous dark eyes convey so much emotion, whether they’re flashing with anger or infinite sorrow and pain, and entire scenes are carried by her facial expressions alone. Along with Past Lives, Shayda is one of the most exciting debuts I’ve seen last year.
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