Marzieh Meshkini's "The Day I Became a Woman"

Analyze at least three different specific scenes that you found particularly important or revealing. Why are they significant and what do they reveal? Were there any aspects of those scenes or the film as a whole that you found confusing or unclear?

Scene 1: Hava's mother and grandmother tell Hava that today she is a woman. This means, unbeknownst to Hava, that she will soon be covering her face and will not be able to play much, especially with boys. She will likely be betrothed and/or married soon as well and follow in the footsteps of so many Iranian women before her. However, all she can think about is how badly she wants to go buy ice cream. This reveals both the harshness of a woman's life in Iran and the complete obliviousness of many little girls to it. Hava had no idea how much her life was about to change.

Scene 2: Ahoo is surrounded by men after she shirks her obligations as an Iranian wife and woman. This is a frightening scene, partially because the men seem so angry, and even more because we don't find out what happened to Ahoo. This reveals clearly how little choice a woman in Iran has for her own future.

Scene 3: Hoora is followed by many young boys who are carrying the things she has purchased. She feels that she's had so little in her long life that now she must go and buy all of them. She has so much that she can't even transport it all home, and though she has ribbons tied to her fingers to represent each item, there's one whose importance she can't seem to remember. Perhaps it represents happiness or a fulfilled life. She knows there's something she was supposed to have, but she just can't figure out what that something might have been. She's been brainwashed for so long that she doesn't even realize she was SUPPOSED to be free to make her own decisions, but somewhere, deep down, she knows anyway.

I don't think anything was very confusing or unclear. Everything seemed quite well laid-out.