Per­mis­sion

Per­mis­sion (also known as Cold Sweat) fol­lows a woman brave­ly chal­leng­ing a man’s right to con­trol her life and her choic­es. Based on true events, the film fol­lows Afrooz (Baran Kosari) who ded­i­cat­ed 11 years to the game of fut­sal to become cap­tain of the Iran­ian women’s team.

Upon attempt­ing to embark on the Asian Nations Cup in Malaysia and ful­fil her dream, she dis­cov­ers that her mali­cious, soon-to-be ex-hus­band Yas­er (Amir Jadi­di) won’t allow her to leave the coun­try. Afrooz tries every trick in the book to make it to the finals, but both her hus­band and the legal sys­tem are against her.

Yas­er nev­er direct­ly says why he doesn’t want his wife to leave, but pos­ses­sion and jeal­ousy seem to dri­ve his malev­o­lence. She attempts flat­tery as a way to manip­u­late him, but it doesn’t work – we dis­cov­er that he wants her to be his, and that he per­ceives her eman­ci­pa­tion and suc­cess as ​“play­ing hard to get”. This com­ment on society’s expec­ta­tions of female behav­iour, as well as the inher­ent patri­ar­chal desire to con­trol women, high­lights some of the roots of gen­der inequal­i­ty that are embed­ded in men’s atti­tude towards women.

The film frames gen­der inequal­i­ty as a com­plex issue – one that can­not be sole­ly blamed on men, even though patri­archy is the key oppres­sor. Oth­er women in Afrooz’s life – her super­vi­sor, her friends and even her lawyer – seem to fur­ther impose these rules rather than stand up to them, advis­ing our hero­ine to be nice, calm and give Yas­er what­ev­er he wants to resolve the problem.

Iran­ian women are por­trayed as defeat­ed vic­tims who have learned to accept the crooked sys­tem (and there­fore men) in order to get what they want, instead of resist­ing and attempt­ing to change these anti­quat­ed rules. This oppres­sion has unseen con­se­quences, as the film sug­gests that despite appear­ances, these women are not hap­py at all.

Direc­tor Soheil Beiraghi crafts a com­pelling and believ­able sto­ry with authen­tic char­ac­ters. This is not the sto­ry of a vic­tim, and this is not a film that demands empa­thy. Time is not wast­ed dis­cussing the character’s past or future, which high­lights the absolute focus on the very real, present tense prob­lem she faces. Kosari’s strong pres­ence and sin­cere per­for­mance in the lead keep the mate­r­i­al cap­ti­vat­ing throughout.