The Ambivalence of the Unveiled: A Feminist Reading on Asghar Farhadi’s Films

Feminist contribution to the studies of film is rooted in the feminist concerns with the cinematic reproduction of gendered ideologies. Acknowledging the specificity of Iranian society and Iranian cinema, this research endeavors to introduce and theorize “buttressing unconscious” as the neopatriarchal unconscious of Iranian society and discusses “buttressing strategies” as the way it affect representation of female characters narratively and aesthetically on the screen. The main concern of the current research are how buttressing unconscious is inscribed into the screen and it shapes cinematic conscious/unconscious choices of the filmmaker. As buttressing unconscious entails a form of veiling- as a buttress- in order to deactivate the threat of an unveiled/empowered woman, it is inscribed on the screen through the three cinematic functions of veiling; sartorial practices, behavioral codes and sex-segregation. A qualitative method of textual analysis is used to find out how meaning is constructed via various thematic, stylistic, technical and narrative tools in six films directed by Asghar Farhadi, the only Iranian Oscar-winner filmmaker. The analysis reveals that Farhadi’s representation of veiling creates parodies of the conventional propriety in regard to the issue of obligatory hejeb. However, his aesthetic engendered the mise-en-scene and cinematography, and imposes buttressing/veiling gaze on female characters, and while the narrative moves toward the state of reparation and the new state of orders is established, the female empowered characters are buttressed and controlled. Farhadi’s portrayal of patriarchy is pervasive insomuch that he succeeds to address the complex network of dominative mechanisms of patriarchy in the economic, and political levels. However, his desire to move beyond patriarchy fails to reach its object of desire, and reproduces its very core of criticism within in accordance with symbolic culture and the sustainable buttressing unconscious of Iranian society/cinema. Keywords: Iranian Cinema, Feminist Film Studies, Representation of Women, Buttressing Strategy, Buttressing Gaze, Buttressing Unconscious, Neopatriarchal Unconscious, Asghar Farhadi.