Leila

Leila
Made in Iran

by Dariush Mehrjui (Director, Writer, Producer)
1998




This film is set in Iran. Leila is a young woman who gets married and finds out that she cannot have children. Her husband Reza loves her and trys to convince her that it doesn't matter to him if they do not have children. But her mother-in-law pleads and begs her to help her husband to have children. Leila trys every course to have children even visiting an orphanage to see if they could adopt. Her husband again says that he loves her and that they do not need children.

Leila is very distrought and listens too much to the mother-in-law who convinces her that Reza needs another wife. In Iran and under Muslim law this is permitted and accepted to take a second wife. So the search begins for the second wife. Many times Reza says he will not marry another, but he goes to these encounters to meet other potential wifes. He meets many, but turns down many. Until one day, Reza accepts one woman to be his second wife. She is a widow herself and very quiet.

When the wedding day comes, Leila is still in the house when the new couple comes back to their house. Leila cannot bare this pain to see her husband with another wife. So, she decides to flee back to her own home. Her parents take her in and protect her. After some months, Reza takes his second wife to another home so that Leila will come home to him. In the end, Reza's second has a child, but leaves him to marry another man. But the child is his. Reza's mother cares and raises the child. Leila seems content that now this is done. Reza has a child, but no second wife.
She seems to have done her "duty" as to be sure her husband has a child.

Even as painful as this was for Leila, she seems to think that this was what she had to do because she loved him. Yet she could not endure the pain of having another woman in her own house. She thought at the beginning that it would be possible to live with her in the home.

She says to the child that if not for her, this child would not have life. Maybe this makes her think that all of this is acceptable. The end result makes her more like a hero than a villian. The man was also in pain to leave Leila behind, yet he continued to marry another and have a child with a second wife. He truely seemed to be horrified of the possibility, yet able to go through with the marriage and child baring.

So, what is the message?