The Little Stranger Essay Thesis

In the dearth of women, love and human sentiments could be routed through children, so stories based on children dominated the screen.
One of such stories is Bashu, The Little Stranger (Bahram Baizai, 1990). The film explores the role of a dominant mother hidden behind a veil. The salient Susan Taslimi as Nai plays the role of the mother, housewife, caretaker, and worker for a family of three in a small village in the North of Iran. While her husband is away “looking for work,” Nai gives a home to Bashu, a boy orphaned by the depredations of war. While Nai is initially uncertain of Bashu, and he is initially wary of her, they come to trust one another. Throughout the film, Nai continually comes to Bashu’s defense, and Bashu becomes a member of the family, even calling Nai “mom.” Although Nai is wholly covered up, close-up shots of her intense and vivid gaze add to her strength as a peasant woman. Naficy draws attention to Baizai’s powerful use of ‘veiled vision’ and direct gaze to free his films from years of liaison by rules of modesty. In one of the first scenes, her head abruptly comes up to fill the frame in a challenging close-up that confronts the scrutiny of the spectator with a powerful gaze that incites admiration rather than prurient lust. The imposition of the Islamic customs during the 1980s prescribed that women had to be

Realistically, Neshat’s film, a magical-realist appeal, is seemingly out of date and out of touch. “All we wanted was to find a new form, a new way,” cogitates one of the characters in a voiceover. “Everything repeats itself over time.” That the woman saying this is either dead or marching towards heaven’s gates, depending on how you interpret Neshat’s indirect imagery, is a symbol of the overpowering frustration and distress that propels this film. Women Without