Richard Brody, at the Front Row, has an interesting post about film as a harbinger of political change in Iran—he mentions “The Wind Will Carry Us” and “Offside.” In that sense, “Be Like Others,” which is being broadcast tomorrow on HBO, is particularly well-timed. It’s a documentary about gays and transsexuals in Iran, a country in which homosexuality is punishable by death, but sex-change operations are, thanks to a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, perfectly legal—in fact, the government will pay for them.
The filmmaker, Tanaz Eshaghian, talks to one young man for whom the operation offers what may be an illusory bit of hope (and also, as we see in a darkly funny scene, a reinvented relationship with his, or rather her, mother, who immediately starts haggling with her now-daughter’s hairdresser-boyfriend over a dowry). For another man, it seems like the final blow in a tragedy. But one of the most surprising characters in “Be Like Others” is an Iranian woman—a very strong-willed woman—who is seeking a sex-change operation. “Women like me already,” she tells the surgeon she consults. “I ride motorcycles.” What has she been up to, amid the street protests? Whatever else, one hopes that she is still riding her motorcycle.
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