Review: In ‘Ava,’ a Tehran Teenager Fights Oppression

“Ava,” the first feature from the Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Sadaf Foroughi, is an exquisitely photographed train heading straight for a brick wall. Lurching relentlessly from one conflict to another, the movie distills its emotions — and maintains its momentum — in conversations of remarkably controlled intensity.

Many of these exchanges are conducted over the head and behind the back of Ava (a strikingly resolute Mahour Jabbari), a strong-willed teenager in Tehran whose restricted life feels like a vise that’s slowly closing. Bright and fearless, she mutinies gently against the predetermined path that her controlling mother (Bahar Noohian) and oppressive culture have set. Her desires are laughably harmless, studying music and spending time with her best friend, Melody (Shayesteh Sajadi), being the most pressing.

Yet for Ava and her peers, the admonitions never end. The terrifying teachers in her all-girl high school encourage informers and expound on the evils of overeating and unsanctioned pregnancy. An innocent meeting with a male classmate occasions a march to the gynecologist to affirm her virginity, and Melody’s fractured family is pronounced too shameful to be associated with.

Tonally acrid and visually inventive (the wonderful cinematography is by Sina Kermanizadeh), “Ava” looks repression in the eye and doesn’t flinch. As Ava’s desperation grows, her director uses windows and door frames to isolate her from her arguing parents and cliquish classmates. In one long, evocative take, Ava’s parents fight while she moves silently to and fro, unnoticed. She’s only visible when she steps outside the lines; and yet the longer she’s on the screen, the more we fear for her.