Tehran, Under the Skin

Some come for a new nose, others for liposuction: the waiting rooms of Tehran’s cosmetic clinics are constantly busy. In Iran, altering your appearance has become commonplace. What lies behind this epidemic of cosmetic surgery? Paris-based Iranian filmmaker Afsaneh Salari is struck by it every time she visits Tehran. She is given access to two cosmetic clinics, where a male and a female surgeon spend their days making decisions about their patients’ appearance. By no means every request is granted, however much the patients may plead.

Salari carefully observes how Iranian women cling to the idea that they can transform themselves. The pursuit of physical perfection may seem ironic in a conservative society that seeks to conceal, control, and criminalize female beauty. Perhaps, Salari posits, cosmetic surgery is a bandage over a different, much deeper wound.