MovieChat Forums > Under the Shadow (2016) Discussion > Metaphor-spoiler alert

Metaphor-spoiler alert

posted 8 years ago by kerchable
9 replies | jump to latest

I think this was a well thought out film, well executed, and offered a glaring metaphor. At the start, the lady gets kicked out of medical school for her Left wing activities leading up to the 1979 revolution. For those aware of that event (1979 Revolution), the overt symbols, signs, rhetoric, and credentials of a Soviet-backed Islamic coup, were evident. Only recently have I again been able to watch a collection of videos from that time, gleaned from stock footage from the world's reporters. The Soviet accusation is strictly a personal opinion, based on some evidence our CIA is reluctant to discuss, then and now.

Of course the looming totalitarian theocratic State is implicated here in the film. It's that very entity that got our heroine booted out of med school. And her husbands insensitive remark about this "being for the better" could have been ripped out of dialogue from Not Without my Daughter http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102555/?ref_=nv_sr_1 an unfiltered re-enactment so real it can be confused as an indictment, the truth is so damnable.

And certainly Iran's djinn is out the bottle, with Russian know-how, as they rush to nuclear parody with the rest of us lunatics. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but the symbolism was plain to see early on in the film. Which I don't mind; I thought it was well done. I know this post will elicit all kinds of venom, but I wear a troll-proof hat made out of tin foil.....naturally.

what ails most madmen is realitys grasp or escape, a paralysis of analysis

[–] suspiria56 8 years ago

No, this is nice. It is a well thought film. The doll and the state of the doll at the end, shall we say, another metaphor.
I saw the gate as the obvious one. An ambitious young woman in Iran, being oppressed, not only through religious pressure, but simply by being a once ambitious woman. Mr Ebrahimi, the obvious point of reference here, demanding the gate be shut (see the near-end shot of the gate also), keeping the women 'inside'. Could be wrong, but I'd like to rewatch the scene with Mrs Ebrahimi again, and see where that all fits in.
But this film is about a mother on the verge of breakdown, told through with horror conventions.

"Gran'pa was always the best..."

[–] dimos-6 8 years ago

(spoiler) She is chased by burka through the movie. I think this metaphor is pretty obvious. I wouldn't say there's anything about Soviets in movie.
Anyway nice horror, the best I saw in years.

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

Damn how did I not notice that haha. It was pretty obvious, now that I think about it.

[–] shaylahc 8 years ago

I think the whole movie was a metaphor. It reminded me a bit of The Babadook. I feel like the Djinn was basically a representation of war and the chaos around them. At the end of the movie when they both leave something behind, it's like what happens when you suffer a traumatic event--you leave a little bit of yourself behind, you are changed forever.

The only thing that isn't really explained is whether the mute neighbor boy had anything to do with the events that unfolded.

I also thought there was a bit of a tsk tsk for the wife being so rebellious against her husband. Almost as if the movie was saying this is what happens when you don't obey.

[–] Oldguy69 8 years ago

Regarding the husband, it seems as if one of her greatest concerns was his lack of respect for her as a mother and an academic. This fear manifests during the phone calls when they eventually turn into something resembling harassment

[–] shaylahc 8 years ago

Maybe there were cultural issues at play, because I definitely felt like part of the movie's message was to not be too independent/strong-willed (her participation in political stuff got her banned from medical school for life, her refusal to leave for her MIL's with her child left her in danger, etc). I feel like there was a subtle message there that she needed to be more obedient.

[–] dimos-6 8 years ago

She's loosing her freedom, that's what's happening. Of course she didn't do anything wrong. It is a moment of bursting theocracy in Iran, which was helped by war situation. She's loosing her head (doll), in fact, her daughter will loose her head, inteligence, becouse she will grow up in theocratic society. She's loosing her books, and at the end book will be left in the ruins of her home. She didn't want to live with her husband's parents, becouse she should live by theocratic canons there. It's a horror about women's suffering in theocratic society.

[–] Riotboy-1 8 years ago

Dimos-6 you really helped me understand the metaphors of this film. I was kinda confused by the high reviews, but now I know why. It reminded me of the Babadook (8/10) it many ways. I'll have watch this again, but now I'll have a fuller understanding of what's going on. 7/10

Look at the night sky, where does it end?

[–] nachomiranda88 8 years ago

I see the Djinn more of a metaphore about her fear to loosing her freedom. To her the Djinn takes the form of all her insecurities and symbols of oppresion: a burka, a woman telling her daughter she can't be a good mother, the voice of her husband telling her she is useless and will never be anything else because she can't be both a doctor and a good mother. And by the end the head of the doll that is left behind could represent the fact that under a theocratic regime women will loose their right to express their thoughts or that their thoughts and intelligence will not be taken into account and therefor be of no value. The book represents something similar to me, a way of saying that she is ripped of her option of becoming a professional and an academic, that she will loose that freedom to cultivate herself and her knowledge and intelligence and so she will have to leave in full dependence of her husband.

So basically a nice metaphore about the feeling of anxiety that women in countries under those kind of regimes suffer, seeing their rights being cut off and the fear of loosing the few equal rights they already have.

Great movie!

I can see how it can be compared to the Babadook, which handles the monster as a metaphor of depression and grief. I also loved that movie, maybe a bit more than this one. I guess in both of them you can always consider the possibility that the monsters were not real, but creations of their own mind. Although in under the shadow multiple people experience the effects of the djinns so i guess in this case they are treated as real entities.