Shay­da review – a mov­ing, nec­es­sary picture

Based on the direc­tor Noo­ra Niasari’s own child­hood, Shay­da fol­lows the epony­mous pro­tag­o­nist, a young Iran­ian moth­er (Zahra Amir Ebrahi­mi) and her six year old daugh­ter Mona (Seli­na Zahed­nia), as they flee from an abu­sive hus­band and father Hos­sein (Osamah Sami), tak­ing refuge in a women’s shel­ter in Australia.

It’s a har­row­ing and pow­er­ful film that nav­i­gates the intri­cate ter­rain of going against tra­di­tion and long­ing for free­dom, one that aims to extend the per­son­al con­fines of cul­tur­al con­flict beyond the fic­tion­al char­ac­ters it portrays.

The film’s the­sis explores, in part, the strug­gles when try­ing to pre­serve tra­di­tion­al val­ues but long­ing for the type of free­dom that can slow­ly but sure­ly break fam­i­lies apart. There’s a scene ear­ly on depict­ing Shayda’s moth­er try­ing to jus­ti­fy Hossein’s abuse over the phone – ​“At least he’s a good father!” is a typ­i­cal exam­ple of the efforts to uphold cus­tom­ary norms like that syn­ony­mous with a mar­ried cou­ple. Lat­er at a par­ty, Shay­da is fur­ther belit­tled by friends who attempt to sweep this sys­temic misog­y­ny under the rug – anoth­er con­tri­bu­tion to the oppres­sive and arguably misog­y­nis­tic sys­tem that we see the pro­tag­o­nist try so hard to escape from.

The film is sim­ple and direct, a qual­i­ty that feels apt for the obvi­ous­ly dis­mal sub­ject mat­ter. Yet the per­spec­tives do become dis­joint­ed at times, with a fre­quent messy switch between fic­tion and doc­u­men­tary style sto­ry­telling – the use of hand­held cam­eras and nat­ur­al light, paired with ref­er­ences to cus­tody hear­ings and graph­ic abuse details writ­ten in Aus­tralian court doc­u­ments all con­tribute to the shift to real­ism seen on screen. While at times the change seems gra­tu­itous, it does bring a nec­es­sary ele­ment of truth to Shay­da, result­ing in a film that approach­es the stark authen­tic­i­ty of a docu­d­ra­ma. This is a large part of what makes the film so affect­ing – the dra­mat­ic change mir­rors the sim­i­lar real life sit­u­a­tions many peo­ple find them­selves in. It gives authen­tic­i­ty and truth to the story.

The emo­tion present in the per­for­mances from Ebrahi­mi and Zahed­nia also con­tributes to the tone and depth it needs. The chem­istry between the two leads is pal­pa­ble, and the com­pas­sion felt for the char­ac­ters by the end is what makes the film so poignant. Ebra­ha­mi brings a vul­ner­a­ble dig­ni­ty to her char­ac­ter, and through Niasari’s still, silent shots we get a sense of the lin­ger­ing trau­ma evoca­tive of her per­for­mance. Through an inno­cent and uncom­pli­cat­ed night­mare in a time of dan­ger and fear, we are also shown that same des­per­ate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in six year old Mona, induc­ing a sure sense of injus­tice and help­less­ness as the sto­ry unfolds.

While the themes cov­ered aren’t uncom­mon to see in films nowa­days, it is the director’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence that ulti­mate­ly allows for a thought­ful impact on audi­ences long past the final scene.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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