Fyra fruar och en man

There's a parable about polygamy used by religious scholars: a woman serves her husband four eggs for dinner. After finishing the last one, she makes him admit that no egg tasted better than another, making her point about polygamy being about needlessly repeating the same experience over and over. Then the husband points out that although they tasted similarly, he stopped being hungry at the fourth, making the unwritten point about polygamy: a constant craving for alterity that titillates men once they get tired of the first wife.

Nahid Perrson's "Four Wives, One Man", directed in 2007, opens with an extract from the Qur-an. Men can have at least four wives for as long as they treat them equally, a small technicality compared to the satisfaction of a man's growling hubris. And the 'man' of the story, a farmer named Heda has got the ego that can sustain such an appetite. As we meet him, he's got four wives and so many children he might have lost track... to the degree that he cared about counting.

The first wives are rather homely, you would think it's their rural upbringing but Perrson shows pictures of their weddings and their 'Western' beauty is astonishing. Obviously, Heda had the makings of a womanizer and looking at him in old wedding photos, he was quite a looker too. It's possible that his personality evolved with the passing of time, driven by rural boredom and the empowering effect of being a man in a patriarcal society. Once getting a second wife ceased to be taboo, the rest was just formalities. According to the three last wives, it all started with the first.

So the first wife is the neglected one and the obligatory scapegoat of the "rivals" who blame her weakness. The trick with polygamy is that unless you're the first or the last, you're twice a candidate for comparaison. That's the fate of the two middle wives, probably younger than what suggest their faces ravaged by years of hardship, children raising and marital negligence.. The third one has wrinkles all over her face but is young enough to bear children. Striking as the harshest of the bunch, an admirable gesture will prove her to be the most generous and gentle of all.

Ziba, the last one, obviously the youngest and somehow the favorite, is tall, athletic with a sparkle of youth carried by her dark eyes (it wouldn't last), she's at first the obligatory target of the others, as the one who broke the harmony that prevailedby derailing Heda's attention toward her. In a way, she's a scapegoat like the first but for reverse reasons. It's interesting that Heda gets aways with it in a sort of "boys will be boys" resigned acceptance but the sentiment (thankfully) doesn't last.

Heda is probably aware of the discord he caused and lets it go. Dividing to better rule. To his regard, he treats each one fairly, keeps them in a house and 'honors' them (except for the first wife) Sex is hardly a detail, it's probably the most bearing factor. Why would a man consent to divide his profits and have four times the inconveniences of marital life if it wasn't for sex and power? As Heda's own mother states it in bawdy humor that would contradict all the clichés about Middle-East: all his son is interested on is sex. Faces blush, laughs are contained but the wise old woman said it all.

Perrson's straightforward narrative makes women's position oscillate between passive observers to anything but victims. They retort to Heda, sometimes insult and threaten him and in a scene Ziba asks Heda to prepare tea while she's having a water pipe. Heda himself starts as a cocky power-hungry macho but is seen caring for toddlers, taking the family to the beach or a picnic. All isn't so dark and bleak and we would almost feel sorry for Heda in the scene when they share the meat during the Aid and there's not enough good parts for every woman (and her children). It's a very subtle scene, for all they know, they can share the man but meat is precious.

Indeed, besides polygamy, the film is a vivid immersion in the impoverished and remote villages of Iran, far from the clichés of black-clad woman, it's religious but there's a certain freedom that makes the film quite bold and thought-provoking in the treatment of its subject. Now that extreme victimization has become the norm of every documentary or film denouncing systemic misogyny, here's one showing the real deal. Women can talk and express their thoughts, but they have no alternative and nowhere to go even after a divorce. The whole tragic irony is that many of them chose to marry Heda against their family's wishes.

Attentive viewers might notice a chance of tone after the first intermission (two years after), Heda grows more nerves and doesn't hesitate to resort to physical abuse, or emotional against Ziba who can't have children, and like a narcissistic pervert he threatens with humor to have a younger wife, a virgin who'd give him children (as if he cared, we see him treating children like collateral damages of his lust).

I read that the director was banned from Iran and her daughter resumed filming. And so the film gets off its immersive nature and events seem to flow in a disorderly manner without much explanation: can Heda marry a fifth wife if it's forbidden? How about the other children? The villagers? Many questions are left rather unanswered. Still, the material is rich enough to give a bold anthropological view of polygynous societies, far from the usual domination/submission clichés but one wished a little more rigor in the narrative... that's not a criticism, just a reflection on how much we care for the women and even that man who can't just get enough eggs to satisfy his gargantuan appetite.