E-Mail This Article to a Friend WOMEN’S PRISON

Prison has always served as a handy metaphor for society and life in general, and when governments ban such films, it’s a sign that the metaphor is converging with the reality. Jafar Panahi’s masterpiece The Circle (2000), which reveals the circular path of female inmates, remains banned in Iran. Manijeh Hekmat’s Women’s Prison (2002), a similarly circular work with perhaps a more hopeful conclusion, was banned for more than a year. Taking place between 1984 and 2001 in the title institution, it depicts with jagged, elliptical realism (it was shot in an actual prison) the love/hate relationship between inmate Mitra, in for murdering an abusive stepfather, and the warden Tahereh, whose flirtation with enlightened policies lasts maybe half a minute. Far more sensational than The Circle (political executions, drug use, prison rape, suicide), it also has a more conventional resolution: the lifer walks into the light of day and the turnkey remains in darkness. Unlikely, perhaps, but Hekmat’s optimism is supported by the fact that such a film could be made — and seen. In Farsi with English subtitles. (106 minutes)