Vol. 71/No. 36      October 1, 2007

BY CINDY JAQUITH  
Offside is an Iranian film that presents a refreshing, fun look at how young women in Iran are challenging restrictions on their rights—in this case, the right to go to soccer games.

In Iran, soccer games are open only to men, but more and more women are demanding the right to get into the stadium—and a growing number are simply sneaking in. Director Jafar Panahi’s movie was inspired in part by his daughter’s attempt to get into a soccer game.

Panahi directed The Circle, which also deals with women’s rights and other social issues. His preferred method is to cast untrained actors and actresses, rather than professionals. In Offside, he cast young women with no training and asked each of them to come up with their own disguise to get into the game.

The film follows six young women who try to sneak into a soccer stadium to see a game between Iran and Bahrain. We see one of them arriving on a minibus of soccer fans. Young men on the bus can tell she is female, but they decide to keep quiet because they don’t want to hurt her chances of getting in.

She eventually gets caught, as do four other women. Soldiers place them in a pen just outside the stadium bleachers. They can hear the game, but can’t see it. Then a sixth prisoner arrives. She had connived to get a military uniform and made it all the way to the officers’ box.

The women berate the soldiers for denying them their right to see the game. The soldiers have a hard time coming up with reasons why the women should be banned. At one point they argue, “There are lots of men in there. They’ll be cursing and swearing.” The women reply, “We promise not to listen.”

One of the young women insists she needs to go to the bathroom, which turns into an amusing escape attempt. She eventually returns to the pen, having watched part of the game, because she’s worried that the soldier in charge of the female prisoners will get into trouble for her escape. He’s an Azerbaijani peasant who is due to be released from the service and anxious to get back to his farm and ailing mother. Until this unexpected episode, the Azerbaijani soldier feels only irritation at the young women who he sees as well to do idle people out to have fun.

Right before the conclusion of the game, the female prisoners are loaded into a minivan to be taken to the Vice Squad. In the course of their trip to jail, Iran wins over Bahrain. See the movie for the rest.  
 
 
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