The woman at the centre of Border Cafe demands, in her own quiet way, her independence. She isn’t an activist or someone out to deliberately cause trouble. But just the mere fact she has mapped out a plan of her own makes her a troublemaker.

Reyhan is a woman who is, as the movie begins, mourning the death of her husband. But living in the Islamic regime which is Iran means she has to face the traditional customs of her late husband’s family. Reyhan’s brother-in-law Nasser, who already has a family of his own, wants to take her as a second wife. It’s not out of love, or any sense of emotion toward her as a person. Rather, it’s the typical patriarchal baloney which deems a wife to be the property of the family, and since her late husband can’t possess her any more, she’s expected to be passed around to those who can.

Nasser makes demands of her - hey, marry me, look, I’m building you a house for you and everything and move in, damn it! - but she still hasn’t completed her mourning, and she has plans of her own. Those plans include reopening the truck stop cafe she and her husband once operated near the Iran-Turkey border. She is able to get the support of the former cook, and the establishment is back in business. For a while it seems as if nobody will show up - perhaps people have forgotten about it. But soon one trucker arrives, and as anyone knows, if one customer arrives, more are soon to follow. And soon the truck stop because an enormous success, much to Nasser’s chagrin, as he too operates a long-running and successful truck stop.

Most of the regular customers are truckers from Turkey and other countries, which accounts for the rare sight of so many clearly secularized people in an Iranian film. One of those customers includes a Greek, who hasn’t been home since his wife disappeared five years ago while on a trip to Italy. For a while, he actually brings his own can of food for the cook to heat up, but Reyhan decides one day to cook some real food for him. And once he takes a bite, he’s in heaven. He is so moved that he tells Reyhan the food reminds him of his lost wife.

This development is doubly intriguing because of Reyhan’s reaction to the Greek’s growing affections not just for her food, but for her. She lives in a very traditional, repressive country where women aren’t even supposed to be seen as associating with men who aren’t their relatives. And yet here is a man, who comes from a world where men and women are equals, who does his best (despite the language barriers) to speak to her as an individual person. He may speak Greek and she may speak Farsi, but he probably understands her heart far more than any of the Iranian men in this movie.

Besides the Greek trucker, another foreigner is a young Russian woman who ran away a long time back and who ends up under Reyhan’s wing for a time.

The personal tragedy of this film is the fact that, as a woman, Reyhan is not allowed to live her life the way she would like to. The Iranian culture frowns on women staking out an independence, and Nassar falls right in line with those attitudes. He claims the honour of his family, and of his dead brother in particular, has been stained because she is working on her own, raising her kids on her own, and ... gasp! ... is attracting foreign men to her restaurant. But in truth, the only “honour” that’s stained is his own - he feels emasculated because a mere woman has taken all of his business away.

The actor who plays Nassar is great as he is able to portray the insecurity and fury that comes from not being able to control someone who society has deemed an inferior. Nassar’s actions soon take on the aura of a mob boss trying to muscle a competitor out of his turf, but this time he has the full support of the state bureaucrats, who respond to complaints by temporarily shutting down the restaurant. Eventually, Nassar discovers a loophole in Islamic law regarding inheritance which may help seal the deal permanently...

Reyhan herself doesn’t consider herself a radical. She’s only doing what she knows how to do, and is continuing the work she and her husband did as a couple. She still behaves very much as society would demand of her - she’s modest, she usually hides in the kitchen while the customers (almost all male) eat in the dining room. Her interaction with the Greek trucker is even more intense because of this fact - there’s one scene where the Greek attempts to comfort her, and she jumps away violently when she experiences what for her would be a surprise and possibly unwelcome, if not slightly terrifying, touch.

But in the end, it really doesn’t matter if Reyhan doesn’t consider herself a radical. In Iran, making any choice on her own makes her a radical.

It rarely ceases to amaze me how Iranian filmmakers are able to get away with the content of their films. Mind you, some of the films that have been produced have been banned in Iran, and I’m sure this particular production ran into some trouble along the way. Most of the Iranian productions manage to make, in often subtle ways, criticisms of Islamic society. And it doesn’t take much for an Iranian film to push the envelope.

Border Cafe is a fine film about one woman’s struggle in a country which has all sorts of respect for traditions, but no respect for the people who have to live under them.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD