Week Six: Marriage of a Thousand Lies

In S.J Sindu’s book, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, we follow Lucky, a queer Iranian woman struggling with the constraints of her culture’s expectations and rules.

While talking to S.J Sindu in class, I was struck by her comments on movement. As a past gymnast myself listening to her book, I felt the authenticity in her words when Lucky, a past dancer, first meets the rugby team. She spoke of how much she missed moving, of controlling her body. I really felt this moment, whether because I could relate to it, or because the author did, or both. Regardless, I thought it was a powerful aspect of the story, giving depth to Lucky and strengthening relatability.

S.J also talked about her personal struggle with adding emotion to characters through a show-not-tell mentality, which I thought was interesting. It is something I also struggle with in my work, where I focus on movement over emotion, leaving too little time to feel with my characters. In a way, it’s nice to know that I’m not alone. But I think that S.J Sindu is on the right track, as I felt that the way she portrayed Lucky’s thoughts were directly in line with Lucky’s own controlled personality, where she hesitated to show her true feelings.

For the film we watched, Circumstance, I really struggled, as it was a difficult in an emotionally and physically violent way. From the taxi scene where the driver demands the foot of character Shireen to the tense moment of Mehran assaulting Shireen, I found it very disturbing. I needed water. I needed space, I needed to not be watching. 

Assault is a serious problem in our society. I know it was not the main focus of the film, but I could not break away from it. It hurt too much.