The Sheila Variations

The Girl In the Sneakers; dir. Rasul Sadr Ameli

1999's The Girl in the Sneakers was directed by Rasul Sadr Ameli, a native of Isfahan, Iran - who also directed 2002's award-winning Man, taraneh, panzdah sal daram (I am Taraneh, I am 15 Years Old) starring Taraneh Alidoosti, the wonderful mischievous bushy-eyebrowed actress I first encountered in the Fireworks Wednesday (my review here). Sadrameli has a background in journalism, and it shows in the films of his I have seen. Unlike Jafar Panahi, another Iranian film-maker I'm a huge fan of - who takes his movies out into the streets of Tehran (my review of The Circle here), liking the reality it provides, avoiding interior dramas ... Sadr Ameli is mainly concerned with the interior. Meaning: the family. The private lives of families in Iran. His films (and I've only seen a couple) focus on the dramatic moments in our lives (dare I say "melodramatic"?) when we come up against our families' expectations of us ... as opposed to what WE want. And naturally, because this is a film from Iran, Sadr Ameli mainly focuses on the plight of women, and the restrictions placed on women's lives. I suppose when you are talking about Iran, you actually can't get too melodramatic. It's all just a matter of degrees. The personal is political takes on a whole new meaning. Even in something as potentially fluffly as The Girl in the Sneakers, about a 15 year old girl in love with a boy she met in the park takes on vast social and cultural importance, shining a spotlight onto how unfair the situation is, and how, ultimately, ridiculous. But to say it is "ridiculous" is, in a way, condescending - in the same way that I find the making fun of Turkmenistan's former president Saparmurat Niyazov to be a dangerous thing to do, because yes, his behavior was often ludicrous - but it had serious and long-lasting influence on the people who have to live there. I wrote about that here in my post about Niyazov 5,000,000 years ago. The young heroine of Girl in the Sneakers, who moons about the streets of Tehran, trying to get in touch with her boyfriend, hiding from the police (because, you know, teenage romance is just. that. serious, goddammit... we need the POLICE to monitor a walk in the park) becomes symbolic. So much of the films in Iran takes on symbolic meaning, and perhaps some of that is unwarranted. Sometimes a spade is just a spade. But the Iranian filmmakers know what they are up against, they know the problem, and many of them are in the strange situation of having much more fame worldwide than in Iran - because their movies aren't allowed to be showed there. Kind of like Vaclav Havel having his plays in repertory around the world but NOT in his native land. Films made under such conditions have a gravitas that cannot be denied. They cannot be separated from the context under which they are made.

I love films from Iran, and have kind of gotten into a groove with them, where not everything is seen as some huge symbol of something else ... I can sit back and look at it as a story. A story from another culture, yes, but that's part of the interest in these films.

If Hemlock (my review here) is a Lifetime Movie of the Week, and Fireworks Wednesday is a bleak version of Desperate Housewives, then Girl in the Sneakers is definitely an ABC Afterschool Special. I could imagine teenage Iranian girls watching this and feeling totally validated, and "seen" and "heard". It even looks like an ABC Afterschool Special (although, granted, the copy I saw was a horrible video transfer and looked pretty bad). It tells the story of 15-year-old Tadai (played sensitively by Pegah Ahangarani), a young teenage girl who has met a boy in the park, and they have fallen in love. It is a teenage kind of love, passionate, out of control, and nobody's parents approve of the situation. As a matter of fact, the film opens with Tadai being called up by the Vice Squad, and brought in for interrogation about her behavior. Tadai is not appropriately submissive or sorry in this situation. For example, the policeman asks her if she has ever been to the boy's house - and she says, "No" followed by a long pause, and then adds, "Not yet." Tadai is not a floozy. She is a young girl having her first experience of love, and she is angry at her parents. She has fallen into a bit of a depression, can't eat, can't sleep ... and there's a horrible scene that made me truly angry - where they have to go to court to prove her innocence and she is taken off down a chilly tiled corridor with a nurse who examines her to see if she is a virgin (she is). But the humiliation of that ... And then the nurse emerges with her into the crowded courtroom, announcing to everyone, "This girl is a virgin." It's disgusting. But what is amazing about the beginning scenes of the movie is how casually it is all presented. It's like a documentary. The "drama" isn't pumped up - it already is dramatic ... and it doesn't feel "staged", you really get the sense that you are looking at something real.

Tadai's parents have descended into a minor war about the raising of their daughter, and there are scenes at home of Tadai's younger brother watching television, trying to drown out the sound of his parents' screaming upstairs. Neither of them want to take the blame for their daughter's behavior ... and I suppose they are truly worried for her. They aren't evil. Her mother says to her, 'You can't be so trusting, Tadai. The world will not be kind to you." There is some good advice in that.

Which Tadai proceeds to completely ignore, in true 15 year old style. Tadai is dying to talk to her new boyfriend, and there are numerous scenes throughout the film of her calling, hanging up when his mother answers, or having someone else call for her to see if she can get through (teenage love is the same wherever you go) ... she slowly becomes exhausted in her quest to get in touch with him. After all, he has had some issues with his parents as well. At one point, his father gets on the phone when Tadai calls and he tells her, "If you call this house again, I will lodge a complaint against you." Because in such a world, the state is involved in a micro-managing level with people's personal lives ... and so to be reported ... How on earth could she defend herself? She hangs up, scared, distraught.

Her parents no longer trust her to walk to and from school by herself, so either her mother or her father drives her. Tadai sulks in the passenger seat, as her mother lectures her, trying to tell her that her father loves her, he's just worried, and it's not so bad having your own personal chauffeur, now is it? Tadai is itching to get to a payphone. She is dropped off for school, and goes up to meet with a group of her friends, chattering and blabbing on the sidewalk like a group of pubescent magpies. Tadai's face is noticeably glum, but she tries to hide it, because whatever is going on with her is private. She's not a silly girl. Now her crush on this boy will obviously pass, and etc., but you can't tell a 15-year-old that!! Whatever she is going through is forever! And this is no "crush". This is love! But she doesn't seem like the type of girl to blab about it with her friends.

There is a scene later one when Tadai calls up a friend. She needs to talk. She needs to get advice, but also to just share what's happening with her. Her friend makes the mistake of saying, "Could we maybe talk in 2 or 3 hours? I'm cooking my first meal and I'm afraid it will burn." Tadai, who is not always pleasant, not always good, gets angry. She ends up telling her friend to 'go to hell' - Tadai!! Take a step back! - and her friend is angry, too ... Tadai is, in typical teenage fashion, making choices based on impulse and emotion, and so slowly things start to unravel for her, leaving her alone and having to survive by her wits. Things do not go well.

She runs away from home. The film is really the story of her 24 hours living on the streets of Tehran. She sells a necklace so she has some cash, which she mainly spends on phone cards to call the boy. But he isn't there. Ever. He will be gone for a couple hours. He's not home now. He was here but now he's gone. Don't call again.

She sleeps on a park bench. She meets a couple members of the underclass in Tehran, the beggars and gypsies and whores who are there but mainly invisible to those in the middle class. For the most part these people (especially one woman, who is obviously a prostitute - although it is never said) are kind to Tadai. But her mother's nervous advice from the beginning of the film hangs over the action. She gets into cars with random men, hitching a ride (and let's not forget that it is illegal for a single woman to be in a car with a man not her relative - not to mention a MINOR). We want to shout at her to stop!

She tries to check into a hotel, but is turned away - she's too young, she's a girl, she's by herself. She keeps trying to call her boyfriend and as the day drags on, she wilts. She begins to get desperate. Crying out to her new friend (the prostitute), 'I need to talk to him! Where is he? Why won't he come??" The prostitute, naturally, is a bit more worldly-wise about such matters, and there is an indication (rather disturbing) that she may be interested in our young heroine to put her into service, and maybe collect her pay. To induct her into prostitution, that is. There are many clues along these lines ... things said by other characters ("You're young to be starting out on that ..." says the newsstand owner) ... and Tadai hovers on the brink.

We feel that, we feel the danger of her situation ... but Tadai seems to be too self-obsessed (or, no, not self-obsessed ... obsessed with her boyfriend) to realize what these people may want to do to her.

Things build up to a crisis.

I won't reveal what happens. I will just say that Girl in the Sneakers, even with its rather ham-fisted approach to such matters, is effective ... and you know, when 15 year old girls are examined in a backroom of a courthouse to see if she has a hymen and then it is announced to the world ... well, maybe a ham-fisted approach is the most appropriate! But what I like about this film is that it keeps its focus. (That's one of the main reasons it reminds me of an ABC Afterschool Special - I mean, besides the focus on teenagers and their problems). The film doesn't try to do so much, it keeps its eye on the ball - Sadr Ameli keeps his camera focused on the beautiful face of his lead actress ... and that is our story. There is no big meltdown or sweeping violins ... but we are left with a sad resigned feeling, and yet ... we definitely also feel that the girl in the sneakers is going to be okay.

Because in the last moment of the film she makes a choice, which - to me - was unexpected, and yet deeply right.

Instead of being victimized, she chose.

And so maybe, like all of us, in Iran or not it doesn't matter ... she will survive her first fiery passion of love, she will not drop off the grid (as it seems like might happen) ... she will go home to her parents, finish school, and maybe find a life for herself that makes sense. She is 15. The love she has for her boyfriend is not built to last, although that doesn't take away from her agony in the middle of it.

Over the course of the film, she has become wise. That's what a little heartache will do.

When she sees her boyfriend in the park, she flips out and starts running towards him. The prostitute, eyes lined with kohl, looking on, mutters to herself, "Don't hurry, you fool" ... meaning: don't let him see how much you love him. Hold a little bit back for yourself.

But we can't learn those lessons until we make those mistakes.

In its own small way, The Girl in the Sneakers is quite profound (in the same way that I remember vividly those ABC Afterschool Specials when I was growing up). It took the issues seriously, it put itself on the ground level with the problem, not condescending or taking a "this too shall pass" attitude which is off-putting to teenagers ... and it created a character we could invest in.

I am still left with the image of Tadai, draped in her veil and trenchcoat, teetering along on the curb (she likes to walk on the edge, like a tightrope), her white sneakers making their way tentatively along the narrow path. Her dream (and she admits that it is crazy) is to walk from one side of Tehran to the other, ONLY walking on the very edge of the curb. A nice metaphor, not too overdone ... and it also emphasizes, through the sneakers, that this girl is really just a child, and not to forget that.

Be kind to the child. Let her have her experience. She'll be okay in the end.

At least I hope she will.

Posted by sheila | TrackBack