8 - Politics, Power, and Embodiment in Farahbakhsh’s Zendegi-ye Khosusi

Summary

In Chapter 8, Farahbakhsh’s Zendegi-ye Khosusi (Private Life, 2011) also draws on ways that the political becomes personal. Farahbakhsh not only focuses on the political environment of Iran in the 2010s, but he also highlights the inherent double standards found within government-endorsed sigheh. Highlighting the importance of sigheh marriages and the unsettling balance of the political and the personal, the manipulation of religion, double standards, and gendered inequality, Zendegi-ye Khosusi demonstrates the inimical power of patriarchy to protect and maintain male dominance. The film calls attention to women like Parisa, who are desired and lusted after initially, but as they pose threats and demand equal rights, they have to be eliminated. To complete her eradication from his life and keep his moral corruption a secret, Ebrahim, who initially lusted after Parisa, now uses his agency as an autonomous subject to objectify, victimize, and ultimately murder Parisa. Similar to Afkhami, Farahbakhsh depicts the politicization of the female body and sexuality in the context of sigheh under the Islamic regime. He uses the figure of Parisa to lay bare the religious and political hypocrisy and gender-related double standards inherent in the practice of sigheh.