Unit 6 -- Zinat

Three scenes from Zinat that, to me, were revealing were:

(1) The conversation between Hamed and his mother in which the mother tells him how tired she is of doing all of the household work and how a dutiful daughter-in-law, like she had been when she married his father, would relieve her of those duties. I believe this scene brought out the true character of Hamed's mother. She was not really interested in Hamed's happiness, but in her own wish to have someone else take over as mistress of their home. She did not, however, want to give up control of the home. The remainder of the film reinforced my beliefs, showing the mother locking Zinat inside the family compound and lounging with her water pipe while Zinat did chores.

(2) The scene in which Zinat chooses to leave her home over the protestations of both Hamed and his mother in order to care for the seriously ill child of a village woman was a pivotal moment in this film. Zinat seemed to have lost an important part of herself when she tried her best to conform to traditional expectations. When she made up her mind to help this sick child, the spark came back into her countenance, and she recovered that piece of herself that had been missing. At that point, Zinat was her own woman, no matter what anyone else thought.

(3) I believe the last scene in this film was also a pivotal one. As the sick girl was being loaded on to a truck to be taken to the clinic, Hamed has to make a decision. He looks from Zinat to his mother, hesitates for just a moment as the truck begins to pull away, and then in a determined manner jumps onto the truck as it moves down the village lane. We see Hamed's mother standing in the lane growing smaller and smaller as the truck moves further and further away. I believe that Hamed saw his wife in a new light as he assisted her in helping to open the child's airway and realized that his future with a health visitor wife would be a good one.