Director: Samira Makhmalbaf

Script and editing: Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Camera: Ebrahim Ghafuri

Music: Majid Entezami

1988 88 mins, semi-documentary

A poor unemployed man with a blind wife locks up his 11-year old twin daughters at home. When neighbours inform the social welfare office, social workers investigate. On medical examination of the two girls, it becomes clear that both are physically healthy but can neither speak, nor walk properly. Their backwardness is the result of social deprivation.

Apple, made by the 17-year old Samira Makhmalbaf drew the attention of viewers and critiques in international festivals last year. Samira had learnt the art of the cinema alongside her film director father Mohsen Makhmalbaf. This was her first experience in directing.

The film starts with a scene depicting a child’s hand watering a tiny potted plant. During the titles people from the neighbourhood are shown collecting signatures for a petition to present at the social welfare office. They are concerned for the fate of 11-year old twins, Ma’sumeh and Zahra, who with their family, are in a state of slow death. The welfare office sends the girls to the local Heath Office for a medical examination.

They get new clothes, a hair cut and a bath and are declared medically sound. The wretched father Ghorbanali Molla and his blind wife turn up, agitated, to collect their daughters. All the time Ghorbanali tries to convince the authorities that he has done no more than obey the laws of the Qura’n and Islam and that they should acknowledge his rights as a father. The blind mother, who neither speaks nor understands Farsi, is only concerned that the girls are not seen in public without the obligatory hejab (Islamic dress code). The first thing she does is to cover their heads with two scarves she brought with her. The girls are returned after they promise not to imprison them again. The social security office considers its duties done and assigns an official, Mrs Mohammadi, to visit the girls at occasionally home. The first part of the film ends here.

The second part starts with Mrs Mohammadi visiting the girls. The film now ceases to be a documentary as the director adds a story line to the script. In her first visit Mrs Mohammadi brings the girls a mirror so that they can become aware of their actual presence in the world. Then using her powers she sends the girls out of the house. On the orders of the film director, she confines Ghorbanali to house arrest so that he gets a taste of prison life, ignoring his abject poverty. She borrows a metal saw from a neighbour and gets him to saw himself out of his window bars. With this act Ghorbanali is supposed to destroy the prison and get a taste of prison in the bargain. The poor man gets on with the job with a totally hopeless expression. Meanwhile the girls experience the joys of life on their first day outing. A neighbour’s wife buys them an apple, ice cream and a watch. They also find two kind play mates which the director artificially introduces into the film [1].

On the last hours of that happy day Mrs Mohammadi teaches the twins how to unlock the prison which now houses their father. This time it is their turn to let their father out of a prison to help them buy the watch. And with father and daughters gone Mrs Mohammadi leaves the house with a triumphant smile. The blind and panicky mother gropingly leaves her home. Filled with fear, and swearing under her breath, she bumps unto an apple which the neighbour’s mischievous son has dangled out of the window. The film ends with a freeze of the blind mother clutching the apple. It is as if she too has acquired the apple of knowledge and consciousness and taken the first steps to liberation.

Sight and Sound reporter asked Samira Makhmalbaf to explain the meaning of the apple. "The apple like the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, represents life and knowledge in Iranian poetry." She replied. "We have a similar story in the Qur’an. But I actually found this element in the children’s life. Because while everyone was worried about the fate of these two girls, they were eating an apple, and truly enjoying it. So I decided to keep the symbol of the apple throughout the film".

The choice of the Apple to name the film was deliberate. It was at first going to be "The girls are tired of staying at home", but the Islamic censors rejected this since it could apply to all women in Iran. The word apple and the fruit itself is a concept repeated throughout the film. Since the apple is a symbol of consciousness and social knowledge, its choice for the film’s title is deliberate. Looked at from a symbolic angle, Apple is not just the tale of the imprisonment of two girls at the hand of their father "Molla", but can symbolise the tale of millions of Iranian girls and women, prisoners for two decades at the hands of the mullahs. Considering the austere cinema censorship, Apple uses a clever and sharp language, making it in some ways the tale of all women made captive by the socio-political order that is the Islamic Republic. Apple paints a culture where the body and spirit of women can be so enfeebled under the whip of tradition and captivity that could turn the happiest of people into an invalid.

"Molla" the father can be a symbol of the 20-year rule of mullahs, his blind superstitious wife symbolises the cultural poverty, obscurantism and ignorance of those women who act as guardians of this order. The girls’ release from house captivity and the discovery of the blind mother of the apple of knowledge and intelligence symbolises the liberation of women through consciousness. From this angle Apple might be considered a success and explains its popularity outside Iran and in international film festivals.

Yet one cannot be content with the message of the director. My criticism of the film is from this angle. Makhmalbaf has tried to use a critical view to bring recognition on the rights of children and young girls, to protest at the imprisonment of Zahra and Ma’sumeh and the inhuman behaviour of their father. But since the film has a semi-documemtary structure, and has been based on a real life event, its language is impotent for digging into the roots of events.

For example the film ignores the predicament Ghorbanali, the main character of the film. He is presented as the main culprit, rather than another victim. The film ignores the role of the state that underlies the whole affair. On the contrary, the social worker, representing the government, is shown in a favourable light. She is the saviour of the girls.

Yet what else could Ghorbanali do, given the conditions he lived in? A helpless father who does not have the most basic of amenities at home and returns home with a piping hot bread in one hand and ice in the other. The helpless man who in his free time sings laments, whose mournful tune and words echoes his own deep sadness. He repeatedly asserts his innocence: what with a blind wife, and fact that while he is away for many hours to earn a living the unruly children next door use any excuse to climb over the wall into his home. He complains at being dishonoured in front of the entire population of Iran; why have they broadcast everywhere the lie that he chained his children? But no one listens to him. Even the film director holds him responsible. The only sympathy shown by the social worker is to ask him, if they were boys would he have imprisoned them at home?

Therefore the official of the social security office, or more accurately the representative of the state, not only refuses to accept any blame but claims to represent the interests of the two girls and believes that the real offender for the crime to be a traditionalist father. As if it is merely his cultural ignorance that caused him to lock up his two 11-year old girls. The real culprit whose victims are not just the two girls but thousand and thousands of others is not even hinted at.

Indeed where do the rulers and officials of a regime which calls itself the government the deprived [mostaz’afin] fit in this story. If Ghorbanali had a decent job and earnings, or this same social services office had offered some help to his blind and disabled wife, would such a crisis have taken place? What has the Islamic Republic done in the lifetime of these two girls or the 20 years of its rule. Who is to blame for Ghorbanali’s physical and cultural poverty, and those of other Ghornabalis and their families. A poverty that is enveloping hundreds of thousand of others who no one has noticed. One needs only look at the statistics of suicides over the last few years brought about specifically by poverty.

Could the same tragedy happen to daughters of well off families, even though they too are by and large nowadays in the grip of ignorance and superstition? Or would they have found a solution to their problem through the power of money. What is the source of Ghorbanali’s insecurity that caused him to lock up his children? And why is the blind mother, as Samira says, so "frustrated and gloomy"? Where does this insecurity come from, and who are those responsible for these fears and insecurity? Is the real cause for such crimes just ignorance and the paternalistic culture or is it that when ignorance and poverty combine such tragedies are inevitable? Finally has the fate of Zahra and Ma’sumeh changed despite all the noised created by Apple? Will their life outside the home remain as sweet as that portrayed by Samira Makhmalbaf?

In her interview with Sight and Sound, Samira admitted that the last time she and her brother went to see the girls they were locked up as before, only in a more modern home. It appears that the role of the government of Mrs Mohammadi also ended with the completion of the film.

Seen from the angle that Apple has been failed to shed light on the real problems of families like Ghorbanali, which have roots in the 20 year rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The film is wanting, despite its admirable struggle to give a humanistic message. Even the efforts of the director to change the film from a documentary to a semi-documentary has not solved this problem. To blame the main victim, the father, as a culprit is a major flaw and unfair to victims such as Ghorbanali and his likes.

1. This is essentially a true story using the real-life participants. In an interview with Sight and Sound, Samira Makhmalbaf said that the family and neighbours all played themselves. Only the two little girls who befriend the twins were Samira’s cousins, and the man who sold the watch her grandfather.