Black Tape: A Tehran Diary

For those following developments in Iranian cinema, this formally distinctive drama will certainly offer filmic food for thought (not least in the ongoing exploration of women’s struggles), but there’s no question that issues around Kurdish identity and treatment lie at the heart of its intentions. A young wife records her fraught marriage to her controlling husband via video camera. What we see, exclusively from the camera’s viewpoint, reveals the increasingly desperate predicament she and others close to her finds themselves in. There are a number of inconsistencies in how this limiting device relays the unfolding narrative but for the most part debut director Kamkari deals with his subject in a productively claustrophobic way.