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Based on Azar Nafisi’s eponymous memoirs, and directed by Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis, Reading Lolita in Tehran aims to shed light on the predicament and the difficult choices that the free-thinking women of Iran have to make. The story takes place after the Islamic Revolution removed their rights, and forced them to wear a hijab in all public places. Our protagonist (Golshifteh Farahani) is a passionate literature professor at Tehran University, suddenly silenced by male oppressors. Her taste for Russian and Western literature – particularly the classics that question the role of women inside the patriarchy – is not hugely popular with the fundamentalists.

The film is more or less structured like the book, and with a very peculiar chronology. The story is divided into three prescriptive chapters – The Great Gatsby, Lolita and Daisy Miller – in reference to the three famous novels. The developments begin in 1980, jump to 1995, back to 1988 and then forth to 2003.

At the very beginning of the film, Azar wears an elegant coiffure and make-up to her lessons. She teaches her enthusiastic students about Jane Austen, Vladimir Nabokov and Henry James. The learners are almost entirely women, with the exception of one devout male. The professor believes that one of them should become the next Forugh Farrokhzad (the great Iranian feminist poet and filmmaker). After the new laws are implemented, a security guard prevents Azar from entering the university without the headgear. Government censors attend her classes, ensuring that the content is compatible with the very noble virtues of Ayatollah Khomeini’s ultra-conservative regime. Nobokov’s Lolita becomes a very subversive item. The book’s protagonist Humbert Humbert is the mirror image of the Supreme Leader: a dirty old man seeking to control women devoid of image and freewill. And an incestuous paedophile.

None of the characters want to “go back to the time of Jane Austen” and be “transparent”. Instead, they wish to remain visible and vocal. Cinema offers them a little comfort. Azar watches Tarkovsky’s Sacrifice (1986) during at an international film festival. Until a clumsy censor spoils the experience by precariously cutting out a sequence presumably deemed “immoral”. Our protagonist becomes increasingly suffocated by the veil and censorship alike.

Nafisi remains closely associated to her students, who share her fears and anxieties. One of such people is the beautiful Sanaz (Zar Amir Ebrahimi, of Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, 2022), who has experienced shocking violence firsthand. The questions which haunts all of them is whether to stay or to leave. Is it more effective, noble and manageable to fight the oppression from inside, or is fighting from abroad just as valid? Azar’s husband Bijan (Arash Marandi) is very supportive of his wife’s decisions, if a little naive. He remains confident that goodwill always prevail, and that regime change is imminent. Azar does not possess these optimistic sentiments. Fleeing the country into exile via the desert on the Turkish border remains firmly on the table.

The nationality of the filmmaker (Eran Riklis proudly describes himself as a “product of Israel”) and his geopolitical agenda are a significant sticking point. How can the staunch citizen of a country routinely carrying out the most atrocious and fragrant breaches of international law criticise its biggest enemy? But this isn’t the film’s most compromising aspect. The biggest problem with Reading Lolita in Tehran is that it fails to engage viewers. The literary references become random and obscure, and the developments very repetitive. The unusual chronology feels like a random choice, without a clear narrative function. Instead, it serves to befuddle viewers. This confusion is undoubtedly aided by the very limited make-up efforts: Azar looks virtually the same throughout the entire movie, despite the passing of nearly a quarter of a century.

In other words, Reading Lolita in Tehran boasts a fascinating story and very strong actors. It just never reaches its full potential. While the moral authority of the director remains questionable, it is his loose directorial hand that remains most noticeable.

Reading Lolita in Tehran just premiered in the Official Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.