Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran: A Poignant Reflection on Women’s Voices in Iran

Los Angeles-based Iranian filmmaker Farbod Ardebili’s latest short film begins with a single long take that is nearly one-and-a-half minutes long: a man catcalls a woman outside the frame, with the camera then panning to follow the hijab- and hoodie-clad woman. As the camera follows her through a nondescript street in Tehran, the viewer hears a girl yelling, “There is nothing wrong with my look.” She is being harassed by two men over her appearance. As the woman continues walking, another woman passes her and tells her, “They are hunting. Fix your scarf.”

The woman we are following places a call, asking the person on the other end to open the door quickly, so she can make her way out of the street. Meanwhile, we continue to hear the voices of the men and the girl, who tells them that she will not be going anywhere with them. We don’t hear how that conversation ends, but it is an early sign of what follows in the film. 

The woman at the centre of the screen enters a dark basement, where she moves into a soundproofed room as the sound of an acoustic guitar rises in the background. Here, music is confined to claustrophobic spaces, and that is, in essence, the woman, Shima’s (Mohadeseh Kharaman) story. The single, long opening shot takes us from one extreme to the other within the world of the film.   

So begins Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran, a short film about a woman who is the lead singer of a clandestine heavy metal band based in the capital of Iran. This is Ardebili’s sixth short film and is based on the director’s experience as a metal musician in Iran. Ardebili lives in exile in the United States, and he remotely directed the film entirely using WhatsApp. Every shot is meticulously placed, and nothing in Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran feels out of order.

Viewers may or may not be familiar with the persecution that heavy metal music faces in Iran, which underwent a drastic change following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. More recently, two Iranian musicians, Nikan Siyanor Khosravi and DJ Khosravi Arash “Chemical” Ilkhani of the metal band Confess, were arrested in 2015 and sentenced to over 12 years in prison and 74 lashes. The musicians fled to Norway following two months in solitary confinement in Iran’s Evin prison.

But the persecution of metal music is only one side of the plot. Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran tells the story of Shima, a woman, which brings in a whole other range of issues that Iranian women have spent decades fighting.

After the 1979 Revolution, Iran placed restrictions on music in general, but for women it was far more pronounced. Women were forbidden from singing solo in front of men as Islamist clerics propagated that their voices were haram and could trigger immoral arousal. Even for an all-female audience, women are prohibited from singing solo. The most famous instance of the persecution against female musicians is that of the Iranian-born Israeli singer, Rita Yahan-Farouz, who became popular after a series of Farsi-language albums; the Iranian government accused her of working with Israel to  plot against her birth country.

These restrictions have continued into the present decade, but women have found other ways to untether their voices. Even then, however, their voices are not allowed to ring free – concert organizers have women sing in groups, with other men or women. A woman is allowed to sing solo only if they sing with a man whose voice is just as strong as theirs, if not more.

Here lies the background of Shima’s plight. While Shima is forced to hide her voice, we also meet her mute and deaf sister, Sherin (played by deaf actress Sarina Amiri in her acting debut), whom she deeply cares for. Shima’s dreams are guided by her love for her little sister. She wants to be able to provide a better life for her, whose future in Iran is precarious at best.

After a scare that their music has attracted local ire, Shima’s bandmate Farzad (Babak Kamangir) tells her of his plan to make all their dreams come true: they call the cops on their own underground concert. They will be arrested, sure, but it would also open up a road to asylum. Shima is obviously displeased with this suggestion. She finds it ridiculous and is against endangering themselves and the concertgoers. 

The influence of Iranian cinema on Ardebili is the most visible here. The scene of Shima’s and Farzad’s argument is shot entirely inside a car. Although the shot itself is fairly short, it  is reminiscent of the legendary director Abbas Kiarostami, whose work, according to University of Amsterdam lecturer Dr Pedram Dibazar, used extensive shots in cars to depict a safe environment that “interiorised publicness and exteriorised privacy.” Within the car, Farzad and Shima, despite being outdoors in broad daylight, argue about the latter’s risque plan with a sense of freedom, as opposed to the fearful setting of their band’s covert rehearsal space in a dark basement. 

Kiarostami’s automobile scenes also gave rise to the solitude of his characters, who were restricted to look at the world outside from within the car. In Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran, Ardebili similarly paints Sherin’s alienation by focusing on her perspective. As Shima and Farzad are steeped in their argument, Sherin is locked out. She sees them arguing, but does not hear or understand the situation, and only sees their agitated movements. Her loneliness is compounded by the silence and the packed aura of the car.

Ardebili uses Sherin’s perspective just as he does Shima’s — the audience gets to see each sister’s worldview and the director uses this technique later in the movie as well to highlight the sisters’ struggles at being heard in the restrictive regime.

Interestingly, much like Ardebili’s remote direction of his crew for Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran, Kiarostami shot his 2002 film Ten remotely too, with cameras fastened to the dashboard of a car without the director present.

Shima’s priority is protecting Sherin. A potential asylum in another country where she can be free with her voice does not outweigh the risk of losing the little freedom she has that allows her to be there for Sherin. But this quickly changes.

After her 12th birthday celebration, as Shima is paying the restaurant bill, Sherin waits outside. Sherin is focused on her birthday gift, a crystal cube with the sisters’ photo, when a man yells at her from afar to adjust her hijab. Sherin, of course, does not hear it. The man gets frustrated and accosts Sherin, yelling at her. Hearing Sherin’s screaming, Shima rushes outside to protect her sister, screeching at the man that her sister is deaf.

This is Shima’s turning point, when she realizes that despite the care she takes, Sherin will always be subjected to the oppressive society’s whims, which are much harder for her sister than for herself. Shima understands that her sister has fewer flexibilities in this society and that Sherin’s freedom outweighs risking her own.

The same night, after she drops Sherin  home, Shima stands at the door, telling her sister that she will come back later. Here, only Shima’s face and the door frames are gently highlighted – everything else is dark. This shot is not meant to be beautiful, though it is; it cardinally represents Shima’s inner turmoil. The black of the background tells you a story about where the subject sits in the world. There is an obvious bleakness, and the impending pathos of slipping into that darkness that has almost reached the foreground. One wonders if it this shot is a reference or tribute to British painter Francis Bacon, particularly the Three Studies for a Self-Portrait painted in 1979. In the three self-portraits, the black background and the distinctive lighting call attention to the depth of the subject’s (Bacon himself) emotions, drifting away from his temporal or spatial reality. A viewer might feel that the same is being done with Ardebili’s shot.

Shima moves forward with Farzad’s plan. She calls the cops herself after an impromptu underground concert is arranged. Before she leaves her home, Shima talks to Sherin, needing her younger sister to be brave and ready for whatever would come next. She wants Sherin to understand that what lies beyond the immediate consequences will be necessary for both of them. However, as Sherin argues that she only needs her sister by her side and nothing else, Shima gets upset, telling her that she cannot do what she loves or protect the people she loves in this country. When Sherin tells Shima that she is doing it for herself, Shima tells her in anger, “Here, I have no voice.” 

It’s a jarring scene, Shima’s voice rising in anger as she pleads to her mute sister that she has no voice, and then her subsequent regret at her choice of words. But it is, in fact, what Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran is about: different forms of voicelessness.

The music and lyrics in the clandestine concert held by Shima’s band were specifically composed by Ardebili for the short film. The lyrics of Shima’s song are made for her situation, as she sings , “When the law of the jungle prevails / Fear to die, fear to kill, become meaningless.”

As Shima’s concert continues, Sherin shows up. She makes her way to the front of the audience, with quick jump cuts shifting the viewer’s perspective between Sherin’s and that of a third person. When we are in the perspective of  Sherin, silence prevails, and when we view Sherin, we hear screaming. This particular technique may seem familiar to viewers – Alejandro Iñárritu’s Babel did this back in 2006, when Chieko Wataya (Rinko Kikuchi) visits a nightclub. Iñárritu uses the paradoxical sounds to signify the mounting tension, whereas in other movies it would be signified by a rising crescendo. Here, it is built through the growing darkness and silence as the crowd becomes increasingly agitated by the news of the authorities arriving. 

In the chaos, Sherin gets trampled upon, and as Shima understands what is happening, she rushes to Sherin, promising never to leave her. As Shima walks to Sherin, everything is enveloped in silence, signifying that Shima is now willing to accept the silencing of her voice because she holds her sister’s well-being above everything. Even as Shima promises to stay with her forever, Sherin tells her that Shima should go. Each has changed their mind.

Forbidden to See Us Scream in Tehran intentionally ends on this note. We don’t know whether Shima has truly decided to stay, or whether she leaves. The sisters’ future remains uncertain as the screen goes blank. 

There is no epilogue to the film because there is no epilogue to the plight in Iran. Metal music and women’s voices continue to be restricted and policed in the country. The ambiguous ending does not merely intend to pique the viewer’s curiosity over the characters’ fates. It is how it is, and we leave with that uneasy feeling that this could be all we ever get.

Neetha Kurup is a Malayali from Dubai, currently based in Bangalore. An engineering graduate of BITS, Pilani and Heriot-Watt University, she is now a freelance writer pursuing Energy and Climate Policy at SOAS. She is interested in stories that traverse borders and impact human life, with a special focus on women’s rights, climate change, and issues pertaining to “The Other.”

Press courtesy of London Flair PR