Cutting Through Rocks Review: A Trailblazing Woman's Struggle for Gendered Equality in this Small Iranian Village

Revolution begins through education. Teach the masses they have the power, and the rest takes care of itself… mostly. In the documentary Cutting Through Rocks, directors Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni profile Sara Shahverdi, the first elected female member of council in a small Iranian village. For the men, Shahverdi represents everything dangerous about Western-influenced progress; for the women, and especially the young girls, she is a role model for change.

Khaki and Eyni are granted intimate access to both Shahverdi’s life and that of her constituents. The film begins with Shahverdi’s electoral campaign, in which scores of women (and some young men) decide to go to the polls for the first time, for her. She is warned not to run by some conservative members of the community, but for the most part her very identity is, ironically, a shield; dismissed as a quirky neighbor who doesn’t know how to mind her own business, Shahverdi cruises to victory. Through her campaign, Khaki and Eyni deliver the reminder that, sometimes all it takes to engender political power is the desire to earnestly speak for those you represent.

Cutting Through Rocks is a Film of Inspiration Through the Power of Struggle

But, once in power, she finds it quite difficult to push forward her progressive agenda, some of which includes even simple tasks like replacing corrugated doors. Shahverdi, who passionately advocates for female empowerment through education and the riding of motorcycles, is also divorced, and spearheads an effort to stop child marriages. The latter of which especially rankles feathers; the film’s final act mostly covers how Shahverdi takes in a young married girl intent on divorce from a man twenty-three years her senior. Doing so causes a chain reaction of inter-family rifts and fights which threaten to get physical at any given moment.

In so many ways, Shahverdi is an exceptional subject for a documentary. A charismatic, bullish and boisterous woman with an acerbic sense of humor, the 37-year-old is fearless and well-spoken. Emblematic as she is of Iran’s burgeoning changes both socially and politically, she gives us access into a universal struggle for gender equality. But her effectiveness goes beyond her mere existence as a woman; many of the men who vote for her are stirred by her promises for actionable policy. “The council has done nothing,” we hear from several prospective voters, and through this tiny village we see a worldwide problem of bureaucratic soft-pedaling.

But it really is in the effect on young girls that Khaki and Eyni’s project takes its most alluring shape. Shahverdi is invited to speak to a classroom of girls, where she warns them about the dangers of child marriage, but by the film’s end nearly all of them have not heeded her warning. Is that a failure? Certainly not, as those that are inspired by her have dreams to ride motorcycles too and enroll in medical school. Cutting Through Rocks‘ title may refer to the difficulty of effecting change, but that doesn’t mean change can’t occur. It depends on what your weapon is to cut through that rock, and whoever is on the other side. Now, suddenly, they can see a path forward. Who knows who they will influence, in turn.

Cutting Through Rocks at New York City’s Film Forum on November 21st before expanding to select cities on December 5th.