Café Setareh

Three women deal with man trouble in a decaying Tehran neighborhood in this melodrama. Fariba (Baygan) runs a local café, but it’s hard to make ends meet with her shitheel husband (Foroutanian) stealing all her earnings. Young Saloomeh (Tavasoli) is carrying on a discreet romance with garage mechanic Ebi (Bazeghi), who turns out to be a bit of a shitheel himself. And middle-aged landlady Moluk (Teimourian) tries to seduce Fariba’s younger brother (Behdad). As has been the case in “women’s pictures” since time immemorial, the men are cads and the women suffer. It’s pretty soap-operatic, but it is certainly interesting to see these conventions played out in an Iranian context.