Unveiled

Well, we're still doing stuff (just so you know!) Tonight we went to the cinema again (Orange Wednesdays are great!) to see the slightly more cultural and less mainstream film, Unveiled.

By less mainstream we are not talking SLIGHTLY! Unveiled, for those of you who have not heard of it (which, lets be fair - all of you!) is a subtitled film dealing with "issues" and is part of a minority film festival! Before we go any further I would just like to say that the film was the choice of TA and therefore she can write the review...

It is the story of a Iranian woman,Fariba, who has been forced to flee Iran due to being a lesbian. She travels to Germany where she takes on the identity of an Iranian man who commits suicide in the detention centre (FYI - She hides his body in her suitcase, an idea she gleemed from an unsuspecting German security guard!) It follows her time living as a man in a half-way-house style thing sharing a tiny room with a European, self obsessed, tracksuit bottom wearing bloke. They got jobs working in sauerkraut factory (mmm - yummy!) where our lesbian lead meets & falls in love with a German woman called Anne. Initial problem (besides the fact Anne thinks she is in fact a HE!) is that Anne has an obsessive admirer in a random German calle Uwe (pronounced like Duvet without the D!!) So, a merry if somewhat distant relationship builds between Fariba & Anne. Anne soon clicks that all is not as it seems (Fariba's hands are a dead give away apparently) But love is strong - Anne doesn't mind & things move on but Duvet, sorry Uwe messes everything up when he realises whats going on, fight ensues, Fariba gets arrested & deported back to Iran. God, just realised how long we spent in the cinema that was unneccesary given that I've just summed it up in like three sentences!

I did like how the film started and finished with almost identical scenes. In the beginning Fariba is on the aeroplane leaving Iranian air space and becoming a free woman, removing her headscarf and shedding the cultural restraints but upset at having to leave behind her Iranian lover. At the end she is back on the plane having been deported from Germany. She is re-entering Iranian air space and is seen transforming once more but this time back into the image of the Iranian male whose identity she had already stolen but once again leaving behind a lover, this time Anne.

To be honest I quite liked the film & I'm glad we went to see it regardless of it being part of the 2006 London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (that wasn't mentioned on the Picture House website!) We were surrounded in the screening, yes surrounded by Lesbane-ians!

TA

I didn't not like the film, I merely wouldn't have picked it out to watch in the first place. However, having now seen it (and it was quite funny, not least because of Duvet,) I feel that on the whole it was quite good. Like TA said, the "circle" of events was a good technique to use, but I did find myself at points just wishing Fariba to confess to Anne (she already knew anyway, but still!) - Maybe I was just hoping for a happy ending.

JK