Father left alone in Iran: new film tells other side of Not Without my Daughter story
Sarhang Dou
Daughter story
Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody tells his version in new documentary
By Tomi Ervamaa
It is the autumn of 1984 and the situation has become unbearable.
The mother and her daughter come back home from the city, and the
father is furious. He does not believe his wife's explanations for why
they were away for so long, and he just keeps on shouting.
He is a typical family tyrant of the kind that can be seen
occasionally in the check-out lines of Finnish grocery stores. But in
this instance the shouting father is in the Iranian capital Teheran
soon after the Islamic revolution.
The hell of their family life is depicted in the book and the film
entitled Not Without my Daughter. The story is that of Betty Mahmoody,
an American mother who travelled with her husband Sayed Bozorg
Mahmoody to visit his home country Iran. When they got there she was
told that they would not be going back. A year and a half later the
mother fled back to the United States with her daughter Mahtob. Once
there, she told her story and became famous.
Now let's take that again: same place, same family:
It is winter in Teheran. Father and daughter are building a
snowman. They give him a carrot nose and nuts for his eyes. The girl
takes off her colourful scarf to put on the snowman. The story does
not say where the mother is - perhaps she is shopping with her
friends. The father has no idea that anything bad is going to happen.
The first version of the family's life is the one that has prevailed
in the public consciousness. "I was made out to be a liar, a
wife-beater, a madman, and a kidnapper in the eyes of the world", says
the father in the story, Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody - or Moody - as he sits
on the sofa of a Helsinki film production company.
Moody refers to the vast power of Hollywood as a creator of mental
images. Not Without my Daughter is a lousy movie, but it is also a
skilfully- constructed drama starring Sally Fields, and its version of
the story of the Mahmoody family has been told to millions of people.
Moody is in Finland because another competing version of the story
has been completed.
Without my Daughter, a 1.5-hour documentary by Alexis Kouros and
Kari Tervo, tells about Mahmoody's vain attempts to make contact with
his daughter who was taken - kidnapped - to America. The film has its
Finnish premiere on November 29.
Rarely has so much meaning been heaped onto one family and two movies.
What are the rights of women in Islamic countries? And what about a
father's rights?
How sinister is American propaganda veiled as entertainment? What
is the image of Muslim countries in the West, and what are the
stereotypes and enemy images?
Images in the mind cannot be measured, but Not Without my Daughter
has been more effective at moulding the image that people in the West
have about Iran than any number of news items combined.
Betty Mahmoody continues to champion the cause of women's rights
in the United States. For instance last summer her story was mentioned
at a US Congressional hearing on the situation of American women
married to Saudi men and living in Saudi Arabia.
Moody speaks English slowly but well - after all, he went through
medical school in the United States. Arguing violently would not seem
to be the sort of thing that this quiet 65-year-old gentleman would be
likely to do, but he does comment on accusations made against him when
asked.
Betty claimed that Moody beat both her and the child. "That is not
true", Moody says. In the new film those who knew him and Betty in
Teheran insist that there was never any sign of anything of the kind.
Betty claimed that Moody would lock her and her daughter in their
house. "Not true", Moody says. In the film their friends confirm that
Betty moved about freely.
Betty says that fearing for their lives, she fled to freedom with
her daughter Mahtob across the mountains of Western Iran.
This was an all-American story of heroism: the woman - an
individual - had achieved the impossible with the help of almost
nothing more than her own will power.
The new film suggests that the tale of heroism about the flight
across the mountains is just that: a tale. There are other ways to
leave Teheran - by plane, for instance.
Be that as it may, the wife and her daughter disappeared, and the man
realized in a state of shock that he had been left in Teheran without
his family. There was no going back to America and their home in
Michigan after Betty had told her story.
Without my Daughter is a father's message to his daughter. Moody
tries to get in touch with Mahtob by e-mail, but he gets no answers.
Perhaps the girl will see this film.
Memories live in the movie. Moody tells about how years ago the
sun started to warm the snowman he built with his daughter, and how it
melted and melted, until nothing was left but the scarf.
Both films appeal to the emotions. Both tell stories that are
powerful, and in their own way credible.
So which story should we believe?
At least now there is a choice. Besides, Without my Daughter is a
painstakingly produced documentary, while Not Without my Daughter is a
drama, which in true Hollywood style is "based on" a true story -
which means that events are altered as the narrative requires.
On the other hand, the documentary is by no means the absolute
truth about the story of one family.
The new film also has its ideological dimension, which it offers
in response to the American pathos about freedom that permeated the
first movie.
The documentary contains a comment from an American film expert
who dismisses Not Without my Daughter, using a typical argument of the
American left: The United States needed an enemy. Iran was made the
enemy, and painted in dark colours. Therefore, Betty's story was seen
as worthless.
Whereas the first Hollywood film shows the wife as good and the
husband as evil, the story now shows the man as victim and the woman
as being selfish and money-grubbing. Perhaps the only thing that is
diferent is that the roles of good and evil have changed places in the
new movie?
"No, the purpose of this film is not to make me out to be a good
person: the purpose is to show what I really am like. You can draw
your own conclusions from that", Moody answers.
So what kind of a man is Moody really like?
When he first saw the Hollywood version of his story, he first
thought that it looked like a realistic description of his family
life. Then his character appeared on the screen, played by actor
Alfred Molina: tall, muscular, with a thick growth of hair.
"I asked, is this supposed to be me? As you can see, I am short,
bald on top, and I wear glasses: no resemblance at all, which tells a
great deal about how realistic the whole movie is."
In Betty's book the horrible atmosphere is largely created by the
change in Moody's personality.
When the father gets back to his barbaric home country, his eyes
"grow dark and empty, like those of so many other Iranians".
Moody says that he changed only in his wife's imagination.
"I have always been the way that I am. I just have less hair now.
I have always been a citizen of Iran, but she sometimes saw an
American in me. It is the way that she saw me that changed."
First the wife baked her husband a cake with the Iranian flag on
it. Then she wrote a book, which continues to shock with its imagery
of the hellish East, stripped of all political correctness.
According to Betty everything in Teheran is filthy - cockroaches
run around everywhere, mosquitos bite their child, smelly people do
not wash themselves, and they allow their teeth to rot in their
mouths, while spending all of their time gossiping maliciously and
mindlessly.
"According to Betty, Iranians shower only once a year. Our
religion alone requires that we wash regularly", Moody sighs.
When he has finished marketing the new movie, the father in the story
plans to go back to his home in Teheran, where he says that he enjoys
his life, even though his family is not there. His work as a doctor
takes up all of his time.
"If I were not here now, I would probably be sitting at home,
reading a textbook in my own warm and comfortable corner."
That corner of his is in a completely different Teheran than the
Eastern nightmare depicted in the American movie.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.11.2002
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"<Sarhang Dou" <sarh...@yahoo.com
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>
and many other aliases, is a propaganda agent for terrorist Ayatollahs. He
has been for years at times disguising himself as a opposition to IRI so
that he could easily spy on other Iranians. Here is how he may be forgiven.
a- a total confessions of your terrorist activities, spying, lying, fraud,
etc,
b- total revelation of Ayatollahs terrorist network in USA,
c- tell your terrorist activities inside Iran and those you have caused
harm, torture and executions,
d- the money you have been paid by IRI and the money you and your thieving
family have stolen in Iran,
e- your terroristconnection with the pro Ayatollahs lobby groups,
f- well all the details of all the work you have done for murderous Akhonds,
have i forgotten anything?
Then you may then be forgiven here.
But you will not be totally rehabilitated into Iranian community until you
have been to the re-education camps that will be set up for hezbollahi,
baseeeje, pasdaran and all the Akhond's terrorist elements. But until then
we will spit in your face and expose your dirty business everywhere.
And what would LLC say when they find out that they have had a propaganda
agent of the terrorist Ayatollahs FOR YEARS? lets first see if you come
clean and confess!