If You, Twist And, Turn Away

By Andrew Longman

Shaking with fury, indignation, and sadness, I wept at the viewing of The Stoning of Soraya M, a movie that surprised me when I thought I could not be surprised.

The film is set in the Iran of the Ayatollahs, based on a true story, a million miles from the beaches of Los Angeles, where the Porches cruise and the plastic is visible at twenty paces in faces of awkward pixies. That's where I am now, reeling.

But where I expected Iran, and Mullahs, and sharia and injustice, I did not expect how utterly familiar this movie was. I expected foreign film; it starts with a French reporter, perfect. I thought to have never seen anything of the like, and to be outraged at the alien nature of the evil. I wasn't. I stared in familiar shock at intimate hoodlums. And I couldn't believe that I believe I'd seen it - sharp, slap, repetition.



In the passion of Terri Schiavo I remember a husband, brute like an unthinking slug, a cretin. I remember he was an abuser of women, a piker, a sloth. I remember that Terri's x-rays showed her many broken bones - the times she'd buttoned up her blouse and pressed on.

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