‘No Land’s Song’ Movie Review – deserves to be seen by as many people as possible
Before 1979, Iran had a history of iconic female singers. Qamar al-Molouk Vaziri was in 1924 the first woman to sing in front of a male audience and still “retain her good reputation”. It was a time when “women wore burkas and men were on opium”, sighs one of the protagonists of the documentary from the Iranian Ayat Najafi. Singers such as Delkash and Googoosh, as well as Sayeh Sodeyfi, performing in the film, were widely listened to, but have since then been made illegal. After the revolution, female solo-singing in public was banned on the grounds of “exceeding a certain vocal range” and “sexually arousing men in the audience”, and thereby breaking the rule of decency and of not deviating from their normal condition.