The Witness (2024) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time domestic violence is referred to
Take a Drink: for every reminder of the state of Women’s Rights in Iran
Take a Drink: for talk of debts or money
Take a Drink: for mice or talk of mice
Take a Drink: for requests to “drop it”
Do a Shot: whenever the son is an entitled little shit
Do a Shot: when it’s finally time to curse
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
While it’s not always easy to parse by the outside world, it’s clear that societal change is coming to Iran, if only due to the severity of the pushback by secret police and the government to the belatedly nascent question of women’s rights in the protests that swept the nation last year.
The Witness sees one woman who’s spent a lifetime fighting within the system as a leader in a teacher’s union find herself facing down even more insidious forces when she bears witness to a crime that no man or power-that-be around her have any interest in acknowledging.
A Toast
Director Nader Saeivar (who’s collaborated with Jafar Panahi in the past, which perhaps shows) does a good job of immersing you in the family dynamics, which aren’t always what you first guess they are, and the strong personalities within it. When the plot takes a dark turn, it’s that much more affecting as a consequence. Maryam Bouboni in particular delivers a deeply humane, yet absolutely titanium-spined performance in the lead.
This is a film that plays like a portrait of the ills of contemporary Iranian society. Everyone in this sanction-wracked economy is obsessed with money- her son is in debtor’s prison, and the husband of her spiritual if not actual daughter only thinks of his apparently tenuous career and doesn’t appreciate his wife’s earlier sacrifices. When not driven by money, everyone is preoccupied with propriety despite slowly loosening laws and culture- a woman harangues another about not wearing a hijab in public even though that appears to be lightly enforced if at all, and that same husband is more concerned with his wife’s sharing of dance videos on social media (from the dance studio that used to support them both!)
When a real, indisputably evil crime occurs, though, everyone’s morality seems to scurry under the refrigerator like the mice that bedevil the old woman. Supposed pillars like respecting your elders take a back seat to maddening bureaucracy, and perhaps something more sinister. Just as the pressure campaign becomes unbearable to her, it’s a young woman that shows her another way. The Witness begins and ends with striking dances- there is more than one way to get revenge, or just to stand defiant.
Beer Two
There are elements here, particularly of the forces arrayed against our protagonist, that seem to take a step or two past realism towards more of the magical kind. If that’s on purpose, it’s an unnecessary flourish, and if it’s not, then I clearly missed some connections between characters.
Verdict
The Witness is another standout Iranian morality tale, but one that has a glimmer of defiant feminism that hopefully portends more for this society.
