EDINBURGH FESTIVAL '98: A culture divorced from reality

Marriage at the age of nine and little or no divorce rights - a new film exposes how Iranian women are challenging archaic Islamic laws in a reconciliation of feminism and faith. By Liese Spencer

THE FAMILY Law Courts, Tehran. At one entrance men are being frisked for weapons, at another women are being made to remove their make-up. "It's a metaphor," says producer Ziba Mir-Hosseini of these opening shots, "two different entrances, two different sets of rules."

Welcome to Divorce Iranian Style. Currently screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival, this grainy slice of cinema verite offers a fascinating insight into the everyday workings of the Iranian legal system. In particular, it is the story of three women who visit a cupboard-sized courtroom to try to transform their lives. Jamileh is punishing her husband for beating her. Ziba is a 16-year-old schoolgirl trying to divorce her 38-year-old husband. Already on her second marriage, Maryam, meanwhile, is fighting for custody of her daughters. These, then, are our central characters. But, like all good docu-soaps, there are a host of colourful supporting players: the wry, conciliatory judge, the exasperating clerk ("your file is lost, come back in ten days"), the hawkish secretary and her smart young daughter, Parnise. Images of alien bureaucracy - an open-air bazaar of petition-writers crouched over their typewriters - combine with the universal language of courtroom drama and familial tension.

"The thinking behind the film," says director Kim Longinotto, "was to debunk stereotypes and to make a film that was fun, one that people could get in to, without just being told what to think. A lot of documentaries set in Iran focus on things completely foreign to Westerners such as martyrdom, or the war with Iraq, or the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. One of the things we wanted to do was to show the parallels in family life."

While filming, Longinotto dispelled a few myths of her own. "I thought that Iranian men could have four wives and gain a divorce by saying `I divorce you three times'. There are a lot of misconceptions."

"We just wanted to show ordinary Iranian women, and their family problems," agrees Mir-Hosseini. "Marriage is a difficult institution and when it breaks down it is always painful. Societies have different ways of dealing with it. This film was looking at those common problems in a specific cultural context."

Unlike Longinotto, it's a context with which the Iranian-born producer is all too familiar. "My interest in the subject started with my own divorce in 1984. I was an anthropologist but without much knowledge of Islamic family law, so I educated myself and managed to negotiate an out of court settlement with my husband." Now based in Cambridge as a research fellow, Mir-Hossein's subsequent book, Marriage on Trial, was the inspiration for Longinotto's documentary.

With her intimate knowledge of the legal system, Mir-Hossein secured Longinotto and her camera unique access. "Ziba was my guide," remembers Longinotto, "she told me what to do. When I first got there I kept trying to shake hands with people, but as a woman you're not allowed to touch men. The first time we went to the Embassy together, I was chasing this poor man around the room with my hand and he was backing away, terrified."

Finding willing subjects had its obstacles "Some men would not allow their wives to be filmed," says Mir-Hossein, "but most of the women were really upfront and excited about the documentary. In Iranian family courts, the atmosphere is informal and very emotional. Women would just start directing questions at us. Our presence encouraged them, but they were very, brave to be there at all. There is a lot of pressure not to talk about personal matters in public."

As the film reveals, Islamic law gives the right of divorce to men. "They can divorce their wives without having any valid grounds," explains Mir-Hossein, "but they have to go to the court and pay compensation, usually in the form of a marriage gift. Whereas women can only get divorce with their husband's consent, or with valid grounds, such as impotence, insanity or inability to provide for their wives financially. Incompatibility is not seen as grounds for divorce."

Racking her brains to find grounds to divorce her much older husband and return to her studies, a desperate Ziba is shown begging for her evidently sane spouse to be tested for insanity. Later, she asks what is the legal age of marriage, only to have the judge reply that it's puberty, which can be as young as nine years old. "That scene shows how the laws are behind the reality of life," says Mir-Hossein.

Wasn't she worried that Westerners watching the film might have gained the impression that all Iranian women were reluctant child brides? "Well, I suppose it might enforce cliched ideas of the country," she concedes, "but the fact is that the law allows it. You can't have a law like this and at the same time promote and project a modern, enlightened image. It's a contradiction."

If the film underlines the anachronistic nature of Iranian law, it also illustrates the daily social change chipping away at its monolithic authority. Maryam, for instance, is a divorced mother who has married again for love. Although Iranian law automatically awards custody to the father in such cases, she does everything in her power to keep her children - lying, shouting and even getting into a fight with her ex-husband, during which she rips up his court order. "Every woman in that court was against Maryam," says Longinotto. "They thought she shouldn't have remarried `for lust' but kept her kids instead. I was on her side, because she's saying, `I want my children but I want my own happiness too'."

"There are different voices of Islam," says Mir-Hossein, "one that you hear through the law and another voice which is an egalitarian one in everyday society, and these women are expressing that voice. It's the spirit of Islam, not the letter of the law. What I find interesting about the revolution in Iran is that it has gradually created space in which Muslim women can reconcile their feminism with their faith."

For Longinotto, Parnise's after-school courtroom antics captured the perfect image of this shift in attitudes. After the judge has left for the day, the little girl climbs into his chair. Banging the table for silence, she delivers a stinging monologue, asking an imaginary husband, "why do you treat her this way, when she is trying so hard to live with you and be respectful?" Later, she tells the judge: "I knew I shouldn't marry ever since I saw what husbands are like."

Parnise may represent the next generation, but the women passing through the court in Divorce Iranian Style enjoyed mixed fortunes. "Ziba got her divorce but she didn't get her money," reveals Longinotto, "and Maryam lost her kids." She'd like them to see the film, but it's hard to get videos into Iran. "We've sent it to the Ministry of Justice," says Longinotto, "but they haven't allowed the women to see it yet."

`Divorce Iranian Style', Thu 27 at The Edinburgh Film House and Sat 29 at the Glasgow Film Theatre