Movie: Unveiled
Movie: Unveiled (subtitled)
Preview: Unveiled - Preview
Rating: Unrated (nudity and some sexual content)
Running Time: 97 minutes
Bonus: The short film Everyone, Everywhere, which highlights the work of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Summary: Fariba, persecuted in Iran because of her love for another woman, assumes the identity of a man to gain temporary asylum in Germany. She takes an illegal factory job where fellow worker Anne takes an interest in the strange foreigner. As teh two become close, Anne begins to suspect Fariba's true identity - and both women face danger when authorities tell Fariba she must return to Iran.
This is a quiet movie, but it is quiet in order to show the complications of one woman's life. Fariba has left Iran after her affair with Shirin, another Iranian woman, is discovered. We know very little of Shirin, of what happened, but every once in a while during the movie, we catch a glimpse of what happened and how much Shirin meant to Fariba. We know little else about Fariba's past, whether she has left family behind, whether she would have a place to return to should she be sent back.
Instead, the movie focuses on Fariba's determination to stay in Germany. It's interesting to me that she leaves Iran because she refuses to change who she is - a woman who loves another woman - in order to stay in Iran, but she spends her time in Germany dressed as a man and illegally employed in order to earn moeny for a false passport and papers. And, in the end, it's her relationship with Anne that puts her in danger of being sent back to Iran.
The movie shows us a drab life. Fariba is in the airport holding center for immigrants, where everything is gray and lifeless. Once she, having taken on the identity of a man, leaves the center, she goes to an apartment complex for immigrants, sharing a room with another man. Everything there is, once again, gray and spiritless and depressing. Her roommate helps her find a job at a factory, where her life begins again, in a way. She meets Anne, and Anne's quiet brightness fills the movie. The color red is Anne's color - in the clothes she wears, in the motorbike she drives, in her house. And she brings that brightness to Fariba.
We go with Fariba through her days. Showers at 4 am, a candle illuminating the stripes on her back, left from the cloth binding her breasts. Hiding for officials searching the factory for illegal workers. Harrassment from fellow workers and Anne's ex-boyfriend, and the discomfort of communal showers in the mens' changing room. Fariba is not only faced with the strangeness and difficulties of being a foreigner, an immigrant with only temporary permission to be in Germany, but she also has to deal with acting as and being a man and the struggles with not being able to tell Anne the truth, to approach Anne as she truly is.
Anne is clearly attracted to Siamak, the identity Fariba has taken on. But what will happen once Anne finds out the truth?
At the end of the movie, the questions I am left with are: what would I do in order to love the person, the gender I wanted to love? And what sacrifices would I be willing to make?
Preview: Unveiled - Preview
Rating: Unrated (nudity and some sexual content)
Running Time: 97 minutes
Bonus: The short film Everyone, Everywhere, which highlights the work of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Summary: Fariba, persecuted in Iran because of her love for another woman, assumes the identity of a man to gain temporary asylum in Germany. She takes an illegal factory job where fellow worker Anne takes an interest in the strange foreigner. As teh two become close, Anne begins to suspect Fariba's true identity - and both women face danger when authorities tell Fariba she must return to Iran.
This is a quiet movie, but it is quiet in order to show the complications of one woman's life. Fariba has left Iran after her affair with Shirin, another Iranian woman, is discovered. We know very little of Shirin, of what happened, but every once in a while during the movie, we catch a glimpse of what happened and how much Shirin meant to Fariba. We know little else about Fariba's past, whether she has left family behind, whether she would have a place to return to should she be sent back.
Instead, the movie focuses on Fariba's determination to stay in Germany. It's interesting to me that she leaves Iran because she refuses to change who she is - a woman who loves another woman - in order to stay in Iran, but she spends her time in Germany dressed as a man and illegally employed in order to earn moeny for a false passport and papers. And, in the end, it's her relationship with Anne that puts her in danger of being sent back to Iran.
The movie shows us a drab life. Fariba is in the airport holding center for immigrants, where everything is gray and lifeless. Once she, having taken on the identity of a man, leaves the center, she goes to an apartment complex for immigrants, sharing a room with another man. Everything there is, once again, gray and spiritless and depressing. Her roommate helps her find a job at a factory, where her life begins again, in a way. She meets Anne, and Anne's quiet brightness fills the movie. The color red is Anne's color - in the clothes she wears, in the motorbike she drives, in her house. And she brings that brightness to Fariba.
We go with Fariba through her days. Showers at 4 am, a candle illuminating the stripes on her back, left from the cloth binding her breasts. Hiding for officials searching the factory for illegal workers. Harrassment from fellow workers and Anne's ex-boyfriend, and the discomfort of communal showers in the mens' changing room. Fariba is not only faced with the strangeness and difficulties of being a foreigner, an immigrant with only temporary permission to be in Germany, but she also has to deal with acting as and being a man and the struggles with not being able to tell Anne the truth, to approach Anne as she truly is.
Anne is clearly attracted to Siamak, the identity Fariba has taken on. But what will happen once Anne finds out the truth?
At the end of the movie, the questions I am left with are: what would I do in order to love the person, the gender I wanted to love? And what sacrifices would I be willing to make?