3 films

Recently watched 3 films, hoping to understand Iran better. They were The Holy Spider, A Persian Melody (Jameh Daran) (2015) and The Salesman (2016). 

My Iranian friend recommended The Salesman. Quite a horrible scenario. A john comes by his old hooker's place, and someone else lives there, but he rapes the woman anyway. The husband is busy teaching school and acting in Death of a Salesman, and isn't maximally supportive to his wife, but he's busy. 

A Persian Melody starts out confusing and weird, and then you kind of learn about the secrets and lies. This movie is on Tubi at the moment. 

The Holy Spider is about a man who killed 16 prostitutes before he was caught, and he thought he was going to be let go because he fought in the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, and he thought he was doing god's work. Quite a horrible and grim movie, but somehow good in exposing some injustice and quirks of society. This movie is on Netflix at the moment.

I came away thinking, wow, Iranian men are repressed and brutal, and Iranian women are oppressed and they're all depressed, but some fight back. 

Supposedly right wing women deny oppression to cope with life. There's so much horror in life, you see along the way. 

I don't think you can legislate spirituality, and forcing everyone to pretend like they're pious doesn't work. If every woman has to wear a headscarf, then it's not about modesty, which it was originally about, now it's just about obedience. They steal the meaning from it. 

With Iran lobbing missiles into Israel, there's clearly some confused energy. My friend thinks the government is about making everyone miserable. 

He liked this song, it was from Footloose, and I told him I was in high school when it came out in 1984. I told him about the plot and I learned you can't dance in public in Iran either. 

I just watched 3 Coen brothers movies that I hadn't seen: Hucksucker Proxy (1994), Barton Fink (1991) and Blood Simple (1984). 

I really love Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski and True Grit. But these three movies were pretty much swing and a miss for me. I didn't need to see any of them, just my completist urge.

Three shows. I go back and forth between movies and TV. I really enjoyed Penelope, and Nobody Wants This and Blue Eye Samurai.