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Leila
Dariush Mehrjui helped inspire the Iranian film renaissance back in the 1970s under
the Shah with his political allegory, The Cow, and has kept on making daring
and socially-conscious films under the radical Islamic regime, including
adaptations of Salinger and Ibsen. Mehrjui proves he is still in peak form
with recent films like Leila (1996), a wrenching "social problem" ala Guess
Who's Coming to Dinner - though the answer here is perhaps even more
disquieting than a black son-in-law. When she learns she cannot bear
children, a woman gets caught up in her pushy mother-in-law's obsession and
her own confused desires in helping her husband, Reza, find a second wife who
might bear the family its much-wanted heir. Her own deep love for her
husband and the tragic flaws of Islamic tradition complicate Leila's once
idyllic married life and make for a heart-rending tragedy of classical
proportions.
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