Be Like Others

Monday afternoon saw the totally fascinating and somewhat heartbreaking Be Like Others, about a busy gender reassigment clinic in Teheran. Iran is a land of contradictions. Homosexuality is illegal, cross-dressing is illegal, those who fail to adhere to rigid gender roles are subject to rank discrimination, but sex change is legal and thriving. (Apparently the clinic featuring in Be Like Others performs more reassignments in a year than the whole of Europe.) That's the fascinating part. The heartbreaking part is the lives of those who seek sex changes, both the situation that drives them sometimes reluctantly to make the change in an attempt to fit in with a strictly sex-typed society, and the ramifications the change can have on their lives.

This well made and remarkably candid film, the work of Iranian-American film-maker Tanaz Eshaghian, has many highlights, including a documentary within a documentary, when her film crew record another crew making a documentary for Iranian state-run media. My only quibble with it is that it focuses on male to female sex changes, with only a slight nod to the reverse transition.

It's a powerful story, and from those films I've seen made in Iran, it seems to be the kind of country that generates powerful stories. The basis of story is said to be establishing character and putting it to the test. In a country like Iran, where a draconian social order clashes with both the ancient culture and the people's drive to modernise, human character as a whole is put to the test. You see familiar character-types subjected to extreme circumstances. It's like a recipe for a compelling tale.