The plethora of misconceptions, lack of proper information and almost racist state of mind that dominates public opinion about mental patients include a tendency to forget that these individuals, like all of us, also have needs that revolve around romantic companionship and sex.
The Marriage Project screened at the 22th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
This concept has been in the mind of the head of Ehsan House, a privately funded mental institute in Tehran, which has been taking care of patients for 20 years. More than 400 patients have lived in separate male and female quarters in that time, with no hope of ever leaving or sexual relations. However, as the documentary begins, the aforementioned has just secured a donation to fund the construction of a building of marital facilities for patients who would marry within the institute. Most of the members of the board, who are actually experts, are against this idea, stating that the patients are not ready for this kind of relation, also stating religious reasons and the consequences of a potential pregnancy. A number of patients, however, are truly eager for a concept like that, as they reveal to the camera, and the head of the institute eventually exercises his authority and orders his colleagues to begin a “vetting” of potential viable couples. During this research, a number of hidden affections come to the fore, and the committee eventually selects two patients to form the first couple. The rest of the documentary deals with both the effort of the selected couple to proceed and the patients who were not selected but are still in need of human relationships.
Atieh Attarzadeh and Hesam Eslami direct a very brave documentary, both due to the difficulty of shooting inside such a facility and for bringing to light an issue most people have chosen to ignore. This last aspect becomes even more intense in a society such the Iranian, where the laws are draconian and religion still plays such a dominant part, with the meeting between the members of the board highlighting this aspect quite eloquently.
Furthermore, the documentary also functions on a number of other levels. Firstly, the way the system works regarding mental patients in the country is explored through the circumstances in Ehsan House, which also highlights the lives of individual patients, and particularly the way women conduct themselves. Secondly, as the portrait of the head of the institution and his rather brave decision, but also of the couple that gets picked, who seem to have to fight against everybody, including themselves, in order to achieve what they truly want.
Evidently, the focus of the documentary is on realism, with Mehdi Azadi and Moslem Tehrani's cinematography depicting the circumstances with precision and as pragmatic as possible, without any forced effort at beautification. This aspect, along with the way the documentarians present both opinions regarding the concept of marriage among mental patients, and the fact that they do not show themselves in front of the camera for any reason, benefit the film immensely, allowing the viewer to focus on the subject and to be informed about it as thoroughly as possible.
Furthermore, Farid Daghagheleh's editing has induced the documentary with a relatively fast pace, and stripped it from almost any unnecessary scenes or lagging, which, in combination with the title also entailing a love story, takes care of the entertainment part. “The Marriage Project” highlights a subject almost never depicted on screen, through a rather thorough and objective approach that manages to be entertaining also. Not much more anyone could ask from a documentary