Women Without Men

Iranian-born visual artist Shirin Neshat's love for interactive video installations and abiding interest in Islamic feminine identity are evident in her dreamy first feature, a 2009 Venice Film Festival prizewinner that is stronger on beautiful imagery than on narrative flow.

Set in the politically tumultuous summer of 1953, which set the course for Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979, Women Without Men catalogs political change through the personal stories of four women — a prostitute, an unhappy wife who breaks free of her marriage, a rebel, and a 
 traditionalist — who cross paths in the kind of mystical orchard that grows best in magical-realist novels