HBO's 'For Neda' tackles a very public death

THE DOCUMENTARY "For Neda"

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Neda (pronounced nay-DA)Agha-Soltan was a young Iranian woman possessed of free spirit and a desire to reject the strictures that Iranian society had imposed upon her. Last June, after taking to the streets of Tehran to protest a national election that was widely thought to be rigged, she was shot through the heart. As she bled out, her face became covered by a crazy-quilt pattern of blood, while her eyes remained wide open, staring blankly.

With that one horrific image - sent to the world from a nearby cell phone - Neda's became "probably the most widely witnessed death in human history," in Time magazine's assessment. She also became a martyr and symbol of the rebellion. "Who was she, what did she stand for, and why did she die?" narrator (and actress) Shohreh Aghdashloo asks.

Not much, in fact, was known about Neda apparently until this program was produced, although she and her family are now certainly well known in Iran. Produced by Antony Thomas, this film is based on the spade work of Western-based Iranian journalist Saeed Kamali Dehghan, who interviewed Neda's family and learned that the 27-year-old had been happy, outspoken and (most of all) fearless.

MY SAY "For Neda" begins with questions - the who-what-why - and does a very good job of answering them. The program, however, completely sidesteps the question that it ends on: ". . . did she die in vain?" Neda Agha-Soltan had no intention of dying, of course, but revolutions needs heroes, and she got the call that day. But what if she had lived? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would still be in power and civil unrest would still have been quelled. In other words, status quo. Maybe she did die in vain, and that's difficult to grasp, especially after this film builds this fully human portrait.

GRADE A