THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
When Fereshteh receives a phone call from her mother, she puts her baby in her bed, leaves the room and closes the door behind her. When the child’s cries can be heard through the partition, she goes out onto the landing. It does not take more to understand the situation: Fereshteh did not inform his family of the existence of his daughter. But the stratagem finds its limits when his parents announce their imminent arrival in Tehran, where they will spend the night.
From then on, the film presents itself as a practical case: how to hide a baby without putting it at risk, or being unmasked yourself? If the problem seems simple enough to solve – entrusting it to a nanny, a friend or a neighbor – it turns out to be much more complicated for a young Iranian woman whose child was born out of wedlock.
Borrowing from the aesthetics of Iranian neorealism (Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi…), Just one night, by filmmaker Ali Asgari, goes into ordinary detail about Fereshteh’s quest, supported by Atefeh, a close friend who lives in a student residence. Just locating a good soul who would agree to keep the newborn’s belongings is tricky.
Break the chains of tradition
The epic engenders a kind of suspense and draws, more and more precisely, the portrait of a courageous young woman. While Fereshteh is not yet fully freed from the obedience field, she is becoming a face of Generation Z breaking the shackles of tradition. In this, the film echoes the uprising of young people who took to the streets following the death of Mahsa Amini, on September 16, in Tehran, for not having worn her headscarf strictly enough.
According to the director, if living with your boyfriend outside marriage is beginning to be accepted, the question of the child is still taboo for a large part of Iranians
From one end of the city to the other, Fereshteh, her baby on her chest, and Atefeh move forward, life at arm’s length. Refusal after refusal, they pass from doorsteps to waiting rooms, sense the worst in car parks, hope to find a solution in roadsteads… Feeling that they have no place anywhere in this noisy, saturated Tehran prohibitions and suspicions with regard to young mothers without husbands. According to the director, if living with a boyfriend outside of marriage is beginning to be accepted, the question of children is still taboo for a large part of Iranians.
In the same way that men joined women in the streets to help them fight against the regime, Just one night does not oppose the genres: the aid offered to Fereshteh as well as the pleas of inadmissibility emanate from both. More interestingly, the film chooses to confront new perspectives and traditional ideas that proliferate fear and shame.
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