movie review...

Soraya before being buried halfway...

Jerome and I watched a very disturbing movie last night; The Stoning of Soraya M.  It's one of those movies that just sticks with you - always a sign of a good movie.

I won't get into the plot because you can read about it here and here. Also here is a really good review of it from a Muslim woman's perspective.  I will say that it brought up a lot of anger in me regarding religion and the "man and woman" relationship/role in most religions.

My husband is not a religious man and in the middle of the stoning sequence he exclaimed something about man creating God to justify their own selfish ways.

While driving into work this morning, hubby and I were discussing the movie and how it made us feel. The part that stunned both of us was the ritual that goes along with stoning; from the women of the village preparing the accused adulteress, to the male children of the village collecting the stones as if it were a game, to the line drawn in the sand and chalked out in the village center (a circle around where she will be set in the middle), to the burying of the accused halfway up their bodies (I assume so they can't run), to the indignity of the accused father throwing the first stone(s) and making her young sons throw stones at her as well and not being allowed to bury her body and leaving it for the dogs to eat.

Head scarf language; she sort of points it at the person she is intending to speak to -or- similar to when you were in school taking a test and you hid your paper from the other students watchful eyes...

Something that was interesting to me was the way the head scarf or covering (burka) was used as a communication tool as well.  Soraya's aunt Zahra was using it to signify that she was only speaking to a certain person, she used it as a screen to make it so a husband could not see his dead wife (different husband and wife, not the one that was stoned), she used it almost like a bird of prey; as a scare tactic, spreading it out like the wings of a bird to keep the men at bay.  Very interesting.  However, after reading some reviews, I'm not certain that was an "authentic" way they use the covering.