How Panj é asr (At Five in the Afternoon) Deconstructs Gender and Power in the Post-9/11 World
Samira Makhmalbaf's drama film Panj é asr ( At Five in the Afternoon , Makhmalbaf, 2003) about a woman dreaming of becoming President in post-Taliban Afghanistan gets its title from Federico Garcia Lorca's poem 'A las cinco de la tarde' ('At Five in the Afternoon', Lorca, 1935), which the poet (Razi Mohebi) gives protagonist Nogreh (Agheleh Rezaie) to help her practice feeling confident with public speaking. Lorca's poem describes with haunting detail the scene of a bullfighter's gruesome death by a bull attack, painting a vivid picture of this death from the sound of flutes to the wounds' sun-like burning appearance. Each stanza constantly repeats the time the tragedy occurred as though it has traumatised the narrator. In an interview about Panj é asr , Makhmalbaf describes how she included the poem because she read it as a child thinking it was about the bull's death and thought it beautiful because it conveyed this death as so significant tha...