The
Iranian film Daughters of the Sun (Dakhtaran-e
Khorshid), directed by Maryam Shahriar, pictures
the poverty of the rural countryside, where desperate families
send their illiterate daughters to a small-scale rug factory
in order to gain remittances from their wages while they live
in virtual slavery. They are cruelly punished for accidents
rather than treated medically; mail is kept from them, and
they are unable to leave the factory, where they are locked
up at night or otherwise kept under almost constant surveillance
with meager rations. When the film begins, Amangol (played
by Altinay Ghelich Taghani) is having her head shaved in preparation
for her assignment to a factory. Without hair, she appears
to be male (presumably to get higher wages for the poor family)
and thus does not wear the customary head covering. Because
she is an excellent weaver and a male, she is placed in charge
of all the female workers but punished when they weave inferior
products. None of the workers is happy; all want to escape.
The scene of a horse liberating itself by running away from
a master is the principal paradigm of the film. Bibigo leaves
when married to someone whom her family chooses, with presumably
another life of harsh servitude ahead. Belghies's uncle committed
her to the factory after the rest of her family died during
an earthquake in Tiva. In due course Belghies begs Aman to
return to Tiva as her husband, but the latter declines. For
that reason, some film critics call Daughters of the Sun an
Iranian Boys Don't
Cry (2000), but there is only one scene
where mutual lust can be inferred from facial expressions.
Finally, Aman decides that the only way out is to burn down
the factory, including herself. Daughters of the
Sun is a slow-moving film presenting the thesis
that women should be better treated in Iran. But women will
have to act on their own behalf to produce any change, as
the men in the film are beasts. With opaque subplots, the
filmviewer may find Daughters of the Sun
to be almost a silent film; the power of the message is in
facial expressions and scenes of brutality and poverty more
than in words. MH
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