When The
Last Supper, directed by Fereydoun Jeyrani,
begins, Afagh (played by Sorayya Ghasemi) is in a police station,
providing an explanation of the death of someone. The story
centers on Mihan Mashreghi (played by Katayun Riahi), a professor
of architecture. Afagh is her longtime servant. Mihan's husband
Mohsen (played by Atila Pesiani), a bank manager, is upset
that Mihan is not showing him much attention, but Mihan married
him twenty-six years ago without love in her heart, and now
he is financing building projects that destroy the classic
Persian architecture that she honors in her classroom and
wants saved for posterity. Mani Motaref (played by Mohammad
Reza Golzar), one of Mihan's students, is pursuing her romantically.
Mihan's twenty-four-year-old daughter Setareh (played by Haniye
Tavassoli) is also a student, and she is in love with Mani,
but she goes berserk on learning that he wants to marry her
mother instead. The tension in the marriage results in a divorce,
an unusual occurrence in contemporary Iran. Following the
divorce, Mihan's former husband shows up at the university
one day, has an argument, and he slaps her. The violence becomes
a police matter, with charges apparently dropped, but the
university decides to expel Mani and dismiss Mihan. Formerly
reluctant to remarry, fearing that she will be called an adulteress,
she then agrees to marry Mani. On the wedding night, Setareh
suddenly shows up to talk to the couple, but she brings a
shotgun, and we finally learn who died and who is responsible
for the murder. As is the case with so many recent films from
Iran, the film shows how oppressed women are in contemporary
Iran. But the film also how globalization is a destroyer of
culture, even in traditional Iran. MH
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