FILM

SUNLESS SHADOWS

Melbourne International Film Festival

No convicted murderers could look less fearsome than the demure subjects of this low-key but startling documentary from Iran’s Mehrdad Oskouei, who has spent more than a decade filming the inmates of detention centres in the Tehran area (leading to battles with Iranian censors and recently a threatened prison sentence of his own).

The young women we meet here — some look to be barely out of childhood — are serving time for killing their husbands, brothers or other family members; there’s little doubt these crimes were born of desperation, but they tell their stories to Oskouei’s camera in a detached, almost placid manner, speaking only in general terms of whatever horrors they’ve faced.

This understatement is disturbing in itself, and the same is true of Oskouei’s emphasis on how ordinary life goes on under grim circumstances: girls playing hopscotch in the detention centre yard or caring for babies of their own.