My Tehran for Sale

A few years ago the animation Persepolis offered an eye-opening look into lives and values of middle-class secular Iranians, showing the common idea of a nation of Islamic fundamentalists to be mistaken.

The live action My Tehran for Sale – which is billed as the first Australian-Iranian feature collaboration – gives a comparable, albeit less dramatic, glimpse into the everyday life of educated young Iranians living under an oppressive regime. Marzieh Vafamehr plays Marzieh, a young actress whose pleasures and freedoms are eked out illegally, where there is always the possibility of discovery and punishment.

This is a Tehran where satellite TV aerials are confiscated, socially critical plays are performed in underground venues, and those caught enjoying themselves at raves are carted off by the police and whipped. Letting a boyfriend sleep at her flat leads to a neighbour blackmailing Marzieh into providing day care for her young daughter. Marzieh’s lifestyle so offends her parents that they won’t even answer the phone when she rings.

Meeting and becoming engaged to Saman (Amir Cheginia) a young Iranian man with Australian citizenship, the clearly unhappy Marzieh starts to see the possibility of a new life – until news arrives that sends her spinning in an unexpected direction.

Writer-director Granaz Moussavi, a female poet who grew up in Iran but now lives in Australia, uses hand-held camera with a restraint that complements her keen eye for visual composition, and employs a non-linear time frame (including flashes forward to an Australian detention centre) with clarity and confidence. Where the film falters is in its lack of narrative drive, leading to flatness around the mid-way point. The film does recover but not quite enough to banish the impression of a drifting accumulation of incidents that might have been strengthened by a greater sense of cause and effect.