Urbanism and the Representation of Reform in ‘Under the Skin of the City’ by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad

Abstract

While most scholarship on Rakhshan Banietemad focuses primarily on her role as a prominent female director and the depiction of women in her films, little attention has been paid to her body of works as indicative of a distinctly urban style. The city of Tehran functions not only as the backdrop for all her films but also as a complicated character. By looking at one of these narratives, I hope to move away from a strictly feminist reading of her films and theorize a two-point urban aesthetic.