ZEMASTAN (IT’S WINTER)

Iran, 2006, 90 minutes, Colour.
Mitra Hadjar, Ali Nicsolat.
Directed by Rafi Pitts.

Zemastan, It’s Winter, is a rather bleak perspective on the working class in rural Iran. It is set in the south, in an impoverished region where a husband loses his job, has to go north or abroad to find money to send back to his wife and child? They are living with his mother. When he goes, there is no contact with him and he sends no money. In the meantime, a much more open and free worker comes to the town, gets a job, is attracted towards the woman, thinking she is a widow. They fall in love – though, as in Iranian films, these scenes are suggested rather than explicit. However, the husband does return having lost a limb, struggles in the snow and dies. There is a dilemma then for the freer worker whether he should stay or go.

The film is an exercise in humanity, an observation of social issues in Iran, especially the place of women.

1.The impact of the film? Bleak? Humane?

2.The rural settings, the railway tracks, the homes, the town, factories? The snow and the winter sequences? The season corresponding to the mood of the characters and the issues? The musical score?

3.The director’s comment on poverty, unemployment, difficulties for families to survive?

4.The perspective on women, their secondary role, subservient to their husbands? Not marrying again? The woman and her care for her child, her relationship to her mother-in-law? To the new man in her life, whether she should respond to him or not?

5.The situation, the hard worker, his being sacked from his job? His home life, the detail of life at home? His wife, daughter, mother? The difficulty of making ends meet? The wife and her work, the mother and her work? His decision to go abroad, to find money? His leaving, his not corresponding, no letter, no money?

6.Marhab and his arrival, from the north, looking for work? A freer and easier type? In the town, in the cafes? With the men? His getting a job? His noticing Khatoun? Thinking she was a widow? The encounters, audience seeing this at distance, the change in attitude in Khatoun? The marriage? Her future?

7.The return of her husband, his loss of his limb, the struggle to get home, in the snow, his death?

8.Marhab and his decisions, whether he should go, whether he should stay? A moral dilemma? Emotional dilemma? The future of Khatoun, her daughter?

9.A comment on the underside of Iranian society and its struggles?