Cafe-Transit- silent rebel

Cafe Transit
Directed by Kambozia Partovi

Plot Summary :
Raihan, a young widow with two small children refuses to get married to her brother-in-law Naseer thereby opposing the usual custom prevalent in her society. This is because, she does not love him and also refuses to intrude into the rights of Naseer's existing wife and children. Instead she decides to take charge of her own life. She re-opens her husband's cafe on the highway must to the chagrin of Naseer and his likes. A sympathetic worker from her husband's time Ojan helps her in setting up the cafe. Raihan is hardly visible and hides herself in the kitchen, producing delectable dishes for the cafe visitors. Soon people start pouring in. The reason of her popularity turns out to be the homely taste of her foods. The truck drivers who have travelled across borders and miles of distance through the dusty roads seem to have got a homely solace in Raihan's cafe and her food. Naseer has thoroughly opposed this idea. He simple could not accept Raihan rejecting his offers of a secured guardianship and taking strains to establish herself on her own. He finds it disgraceful for the family to let a woman work. Raihan tries to convince him that she is out of the sight and reach of the customers, confined to her kitchen and doing her work, the only thing she knows. Raihan's cafe however jeopardizes the business of Naseer's own cafe, which enrages him even more. Soon in the cafe two foreigners find repose. A Russian girl fleeing from war deported by a truck driver gets asylum with Raihan. Also Zachario, a Greek truck driver, who frequents the cafe falls in love with Raihan.Naseer, manipulating facts, tries to bribe the authorities to get Raihan's cafe closed down, which he eventually succeeds in doing. At the end we find,Naseer contemplating that Raihan will finally succumb to his wisher relinquishing her zeal to curb her own destiny. Raihan though still unrelenting, refuses Zachario's marriage offer and instead rents another cafe en face de Naseer's cafe and resumes her battle of self-dignity once again.

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Raihan means "basil" an aromatic culinary herb, used in garnishing as well as a thickening agent. However a women to be named "Raihan" and not "Raihan-"A" is quite unusual. In fact often when Naseer goes around complaining against Raihan's activities of disgracing the family, the authorities doubt about the name being Raihan or Raihana. May be choosing an unusual male sounding name for his protagonist, Partovi sets the silent yet stoic rebellious tone of the movie.
Raihan is anything but a preaching, slogan hurling, norm-defying feminist. All she wants is the right to live and lead her own life. Her struggle for dignity and freedom to curb out her own destiny however threatens the all pervasive roots of patriarchy, making the bearers weary of their identity. Raihan's decision to work at the cafe therefore enrages Naseer. He could not bring himself to face Raihan's rejection of his charity towards her. Naseer's sense of power comes from his right of controlling everyone's life. Raihan's polite refusal to succumb to his ideas, suddenly makes him feel insecure.
Raihan however is never pronounced in her opposition to Nasser. Rather everytime she politely tries to put forth her point. Patriarchy however is entrenched deep within the lives of people around her. Her apathy for Naseer's already existing wife and children, sets his wife against her. She pleads with Raihan to come and stay with her, lest Naseer would disrespect his own wife for jealousy and being and impediment to his duty of charity. This shows that these women in Iran are even conditioned to share their husband, the whole idea being garbed in the sentiment of helping your husband in his deeds of good.
The matriarch of the family, Naseer's mother, has right to fulfill her penchant for cigarettes, but not the right to think of a woman living independently without being under the aegis of men.
When running the cafe Raihan locks herself in the kitchen. However the diners get to know the aroma and presence of this "basil" through her food. Located on the highway which connects, Iran, Turkey, Syria, people from varied colors and languages flock her cafe. Raihan's cafe is like a melting pot for assimilation different cultures and cooking up a new one. The unseen invisible owner of the cafe in her absence becomes a fictional construct in the minds of these diners as a kind, caring homely comfort. This adds up to her cafe's popularity. It seems that the constraints of a woman here to be confined to her restricted space of kitchen and cooking suddenly becomes her power. That is exactly the point Raihan argues with the authorities. She says that she can only cook. Hence she has no other option but to choose cooking as her tool. However cooking here expands Raihan's authority, her personna beyond the regular dimensions. It seems what the feminist theory calls for emancipation, comes to Raihan through the very activity traditional feminist theory considers to be limiting and restrictive for women.
May be Partovi had to make sure that he avoids overtly political overtones and crying for absolute denial of social norms,in his efforts of making a movie in Iran. Cafe Transit does not really take up the tension and problems confronted through Panahi's Circle where Partovi only has written the script.
Here the rebel against the norms is more humane and softer. It appears to be the struggle of one woman, which to us becomes the story for all. However,Cafe Transit can be a pre-amble to "Circle". In Circle it seems in the world of banishments and doctrines for women, it is their own circle that these women meet and draw their strengths from. The sub-plot of the Russian refugee, whom Raihan gives shelter conveys this idea. The women donot understand each others' language. However, it seems that the language of compassion and love need not be comprehended through a scripted dialect. The Russian girl weeps over her exploitation by the drivers she confided with to flee the war, which Raihan understands her lament for her lost sister and gives her a shoulder. And the these two women cry their hearts out for each other, not for their fates and agony in the hands of men, but for the greater sorrows caused in the world by war. This lifts the movie from its limitations of being a feministic rebel to that of a greater humanitarian plea.
Raihan's character is buoyant through her soft yet stoic approach of striving for independence.
It seems she fills in her mourner's black vacuous existence with hues of the polos, kebabs, the ghost she dishes out rich is flavors and aroma.
Her only way to reach out to the outside world banned to her through her food. Hence Zachario's initial rejection of her food seems to challenge her perception of her existence, which she feels is getting nulled. Hence she makes her version of the food, which appeals to Zachario.
In Iran a director cannot show openly man woman relationship, the needs of love and sex. In this case, it was difficult to show the internal wants of a young, mourning widow to ask for life and love, the way she wants. Hence cuisine was Raihan's expression subdued in the aroma and grease of her dishes.
A brilliant scene is where we find Raihan's approval of Zacharia's love. When the latter confides in her, we donot find a twitch of muscle, even a single expression to convey comprehension. However back at home, we find, Raihan for the first time after her husband's death takes off her back scarf and puts on a colored one.
However Raihan does not accept Zacharia's offer to marry him and leave Iran. Rather, we find her continuing with her struggle with a new resolve even after eviction from her cafe.
The movie starts with Zacharia and the Russian girl (Skitzah if I remember) reminiscing about Raihan at two different place to different sets of people. Slowly then in flashbacks the story unfolds.
In one scene we find the girl serving "Mirza Ghoshemi" to the people somewhere afr from Iran. I find the use of a culinary item here to be brilliant. However hard we try to stop influence of "others" into our well guarded close bordered nations, cultures keep on transcending boundaries and taking new shape, form and color. Food is one such ingredient. Hence Raihan's Mirza Ghoshemi now finds herself palatable at the table of a stranger miles away from its origin and so gets carried the story of Raihan and her likes, gathering momentum and force, challenging the shackles of patriarchy.