ORCA (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Orca, Blue Fox Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 31, 2023

Strident rules and inflexible traditions keep down a series of great accomplishments in Orca. This drama, about an Iranian woman who escapes physical abuse but cannot overcome an oppressive society, is a genuinely inspiring story, in part because it doesn't adhere to the formula we might expect from the tale of a competitive swimmer. The victories here are personal, while the defeats point directly at the failures of a system that has no room for the victories or even the basic rights of certain types of people.

Tala Matazedi's screenplay is inspired by the life of Elham Asghari, a long-distance swimmer living in Iran whose dreams have been quashed by the country's laws. Women cannot swim in public, unless it is in designated spaces at appointed times, or in pools, unless they are segregated from men, and participation in any kind of international swimming competition is banned, out of fear of displaying any part or even the shape of a woman's body.

With those ambitions undone, Elham (Taraneh Alidoosti) ended up in a marriage to a viciously abusive man, who has nearly killed her in the film's opening scenes. After recovering from a coma, Elham becomes depressed, distanced from her parents—including father Saeed (Masoud Karamati), a former wrestler—while living with them, and sees no future in her life. Over a pair of nights, Elham sets out to the Caspian Sea, hoping the waters will serve as her grave.

Instead, she finds a new purpose: to break the distance record for swimming in open water. The problem, as laid out by the strict head of Iranian women's sports Nazar (Mahtab Keramati), is that the country does not and will not recognize such a record for any woman. That doesn't stop Elham from making multiple attempts and finding a way to achieve some official record for her efforts.

Motazedi and director Sahar Mosayebi make the political challenges of this fight clear and infuriating, as Nazar dashes the hopes of women and whole teams of them on account of dress codes, questionable financial concerns, and ultra-conservative fearmongering. She, though, is merely a representative of an entire government and ideological system imposing these rules and finding religious justification for prejudice.

In her determination and private battle to claim the meaning she wants for her own life, Elham becomes as much a symbol as a fleshed-out character, played with real grit by Alidoosti. She's one beacon of hope, but the film makes room for many others—some have names, like the father and a couple coaches and a supportive hotel owner named Mahaal (Mahtab Nasirpour), but others are just faces, cheering Elham despite the regulations and threats coming from Nazar and the sports committee's henchmen.

Orca revolves around such small gestures and fights, aimed at a much larger issues. The result is a climactic swim that, while so loaded with metaphor, is treated as a display of physical endurance and the culmination of true courage.

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