Seven Winters in Tehran is a tough watch. This has nothing to do with the qualities of the film but with the incredible injustice the main protagonist and her family are subjected to. The kind of injustice we unfortunately have grown accustomed to when watching documentaries from Iran. Even so, this one still manages to put a knife through your heart.
And indeed it was a knife that set the whole string of events in motion. If it hadn’t been for the knife, Reyhaneh, the main character, would have not been able to defend herself against rape. The offender would have still been alive. Reyhaneh might have also been dead, or imprisoned, or threatened into silence.
But Reyhaneh, then 19, took the knife and stabbed her attacker to death, not knowing of course he was a member of the Secret Service in Iran. And so the story evolves. The documentary starts by stating that all of the video and audio was smuggled out of Iran. That is why we’re able to hear Reyhaneh’s voice from Shahr-e Rey, the horrendous prison she stayed at, waiting for her execution. She sounds calm and collected, accepting, also determined. And unyielding.
The tapes of Reyhaneh’s calls from prison form the backbone of this gripping account of everything that happened to her and her family ever since that cursed day. A small amount of space is dedicated to showing the young woman as a carefree child, growing up in a loving family with two sisters and parents who raised their daughters believing in equality. The home videos deliver a few moments of blissful happiness and some desperately needed relief. Because from the start, we know that all of the hard work, all of the energy put into getting Reyhaneh released, getting a fair trial, receiving an amnesty, will be in vain.
Yet we keep watching, because we want to get to know this woman, who is described by her parents, sisters and fellow prisoners. The details of what was done to her and the harassment of her parents, the way she deals with her fate and with her fellow sufferers in prison, the way she continues to fight behind bars for better treatment of women and the admirable sense of justice with which she rejects the chance to avoid her fate: all that makes the film worth our investment.
This could easily have been a podcast – the images are just an illustration of what is being told. The videoed trips to the prison to visit Reyhaneh, the interviewees, the model of the prison, the views over Tehran may not add much visually, but they reinforce the credibility of the story.
One quibble is that the threat-laden music can be at times distracting. The testimonials on which the story rests are strong enough. And although the story remains solid, you can’t help feeling that less would have been more in this case. Because what you especially need in this story are moments to recover, to process the monstrous grandeur of this injustice, something that Reyhaneh and her family were not awarded.
The stories of Reyhaneh and all the other women in this documentary once again make you aware of a horrific reality: in Iran, half of the population practically live without rights. Even international anger and protest seems to have little effect.
‘Laws of rape and self-defence are written by man’, is a wry observation made somewhere. ‘We are always guilty.’ All the women can do, besides flee the country, is pray and wish for a future without rape, and without people taking advantage of power. Until such time, we will just have to sit through these uncomfortable accounts of injustice again and again.
Germany/France, 2023, 97 mins
Director: Steffi Niederzoll
Screenplay: Steffi Niederzoll
Cinematography: Julia Daschner
Editing: Nicole Kortlüke
Music: Flemming Nordkrog
Sound Design: Andreas Hildebrandt
Sound: César Fernández Borrás
Production Design: Miren Oller
Make-Up: M. Gol
Assistant Director: Stefan Kriekhaus
Production Manager: Svenja Heinrichs
Producers: Knut Losen, Melanie Andernach
Co-Producers: Laurent Lavolé, Gilles Sacuto, Miléna Poylo
ExecutiveProducers: Stina Ataeian, Céline Loiseau, Eva Lass
Production: Made in Germany Filmproduktion
Co-Production: TS Productions, Paris; Gloria Films, Paris; WDR, Köln
World sales: Cercamon
