‘An Eye for An Eye’ Review: Provocative Doc Poses Big Questions About Vengeance and Mercy in the Iranian Justice System

The Concept of Reciprocal Justice – “An Eye for An Eye” – Goes Back to the Code of Hammurabi and Various Religious Texts, But Has Facked Challenges Biblical (“Vengeeance Isacea. Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained ”), and Catch-Al (An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind).

Tanaz Eshaghan and Farzad Jafari’s Anie for an Eye Puts Issues of Justice, Vengeance and Mercy to the Ultimate Test in A Documentary That’s Taut, Emocial and Provocative. There’s A Sense That 84-Minute Film Leaves A Lot of Big Ideas on the Table In Favor of Something Ofting More Intimate and Efficient Out of Control If It Tried To Answer Ever Question It Introducts.

Set in Tehran and Information Viewers Only About of the Details of the Iranian Legal System that MMMEDIATELY RELEVANT, Anie for an Eye Focuss on Tahoreh, Out on Bail After 14 Years in Prison for Murdering HUSBAND. Tahoreh claimed that she strangled hossin after years of drug-fueled abuse, expressing consCerns for her young Daughters and Son Mohsen. The System Did Not Care.

Tahoreh’s Life Remains in Limbo. Her Fate is in the Hands of Her Brother-In-In-Law, Bashir, The Final Arbiter of a Semingly Impossible Decision: At His Word, Tahoreh Can Be Execuceded or Else Bashir and His Famy. Exchange for His Mercy. Bashir’s Mother Wants Tahoreh Dead, Especial Since Tahoreh Has Been Remorsless.

Plus, It Isn’t Tahoreh and Her Kids Have Very Much Money, Nor The Prospects To Make That Money In A Country That’s Teeting On The Brink of Rebellion or Economic Colls Collaps. Mohsen, Who Initially Felt Betrayed By His Mother’s Crime Now Now that She Should Be Doing More to Fight For Her Life, That His Uncle And Grandmother SHOULD BE TUNKING OFF

As gripping as this life-and-death Anie for an Eye and Ponder Versions that might have been more expansive.

The Directors Include Necessary Concern About, IF Not Condemnation of, The Religious-Basted Law Designed to Affirm the Patriarchy. I interest to see, thoUGH, that tahoreh’s lawyer is a woman, as are the variety anti-extra-extra-extracoction advocates WHO Composed Entirely of Men). Questions About the gender of this Process ARISE THRUGHOUT, But ESHAGHIAN AND JAFARI SIMPLY ARINN’T INTERESTED IN MAKING THIS AN IDEOLOGICALY About the Horrors of Life for Women in Modern Iran.

Tahoreh is a victim here, but the documentary is evas in it approach to the Central Crime. Tahoreh Took Responsability Alone, Even Thought Both of Her Daughters Initially Stated that Participated in the Murder and the Disposal of the Body – Two Versions of Event. Six at the time, told the polic. The Directors Get A Local Journalist and Law Enforcement Figure to Point to the Aspects of the Case That Don’T Line Up – Specialize the Alleged Involvement of Anseen Maned Hamed Hamed.

Was this a Crime of Passion or Premedted? Can We Choose Between the Versions That We Know or Is Something Even Twistier AFoot? How is the Men in Power SO Eager to Punish Tahoreh and Yet So Skeptical That Any Woman Could Have Committed this Crime at All All? With APPETITES FOR TRUE CRIME Documentaries Seemingly Inlable, Some Viewers Will Be Perplexed and Even Frustrated at How The Directors Don’t Want to Play.

The Simple Question That Eshaghian and Jafari Presumable Wantynit-Innclined Viewers to Ask Is: “Does What Happened Even Matter at this Point?” The choices that Tahoreh and Her Family as Making – Regarding How to Scrownge for Money and How to Appeal to Hossein’s Family for Mercy – Aren’t Impacted Anymore. Nor Is It Really Relevant to the Documentary If Is A Broken System That Gave Bashir and His Side of The Family the Life-Antath Power Over People Who, In A Different Timeline. Well. THESE ARUSADERS OR SYMBOLS, they’re people who have choices to make, whother the Institutions Involved Are Right or Wrong.

The Documentary Lives in Tese Weighty Conversations That Are, Remarkably, Playing Out with Cameras at Close Range – The Debates and Negotias, The Pleas and Manipulations. I don’t’t’t’s wrong to wish that the Film Contained a Little More Investigation or A Little More Activism. But as the Drama Escalates, It’s Hard to Get Hung Up on Those Things and Easy to Become Investled in Mohsen’s Building Desperation and In Tahereh’s Almost Unreadable Resistance Tour to Beg.

The Documentary Works Well Enough That You Can Find Empathy for Hossein’s Family, Even if Hossein Is The Piece’s Villain and Tahoreh is Presented as The Victim. We’re Watching Bashir Delibrate Between Money That Could Help His Struggling Family and Perpetuating A Cycle of Violence That Still May Not Bring Them Peace.

Even if the Documentary Finds Resolution, The Questions Both Directly Instigated and Tacitly Seeded Linger in Intricate Ways.