Offside
Director: Jafar Panahi
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 2.0
Cinéma vérité-style look at what happens when soccer-mad Iranian girls try to get into a soccer match because, in the nation of Iran, women aren't allowed to sit next to men or listen to men cheer or look like women or breathe or basically have any rights whatsoever. This is a rather obvious point, however, and despite some moments of humor (mostly courtesy of the perpetually frustrated police officers who have trouble containing the Estrogen Surge) a lot of this seems like a shouting match: the girls scream "let us in!" while the cops yell "quiet!" over and over. The need for protest films in a country such as Iran is important - I'll never deny that - but this doesn't illuminate the issue of women's rights that much ... and being an American, I don't feel I'll ever be able to comprehend the soccer fetish.
