This wonderful documentary captures a journey two women take together from a past where they were enemies to a present where they are both displaced Iranian compatriots. The two woman are an interesting mix: the filmmaker Nahid Persson Sarvestani, who as a teen, participated as a communist in the revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran, and Farah Pahlavi, the Queen of Iran and wife of the late Shah. Shot over two years as Nahid visits the Queen in Paris, Egypt and the United States, the documentary beautifully illustrates the history that overtook both woman, the tragedies that struck their lives as a result and the scars they've left, and perhaps most poignantly, the realization that some 30 years on - despite it all - they have reached the same destination. Its only flaw, and it is considerable, is Nahid's inability to grill the Queen on the truths of the Shah's regime and his tactics. As a story of two woman, fabulous; as a documentary trying to wean some insight from a witness that was as close as anyone could be to the fall of the Shah, not so fabulous.
My rating 8 out 10.
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