The Ladies Room

Filmed entirely inside a women's washroom in a Tehran public park, this simply-produced but powerful film, directed by Iranian actress Mahnaz Afzali, profiles several women--addicts, prostitutes, young mothers, and runaways--who convene in the washroom to socialize and therapeutically bond. The ladies room is one of the few public (yet, paradoxically, private) places where women feel comfortable smoking, engaging in provocative conversations, and removing their veils, and the film allows audiences a privileged--and stereotype-debunking--glimpse into the surprisingly progressive conversations typically hidden from Western eyes and ears. The women include Maryam, an epileptic who reveals the circumstances that drove her to heroin addiction and self-mutilation; Sepideh, who talks about her contentious relationship with her mother; and the matronly washroom attendant who provides comfort as best she can. As these women bum cigarettes from one another and touch on a range of normally taboo subject matters--suicide, drug use, spousal abuse, prostitution, poverty, and motherhood--the conversation is alternately confrontational and illuminating. The barebones production includes a couple sound glitches and subtitle typos, but these are minor compared to the culture shock of discovering that under repressive Iranian religious fundamentalist rule a public restroom provides one of the only social forums for women who have been--or are threatened with being--dispossessed by their society, and whose social and psychological outlets are severely limited. Sure to appeal to readers of Azar Nafisi's surprise bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran--which looks at a necessarily secret women's book club--The Ladies Room is recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)