A great goal

Reviewed - Offside: THE dearth of new film releases this week speaks of the distributors' belief that nothing - neither fire, pestilence nor the Olympics - discourages punters from entering cinemas the way the World Cup does.

Well, male punters, at least. From next weekend, evidence, in the form of various weedy romantic comedies, will be proffered of the studios' patronising view that women are unable to appreciate the great pastime.

A glance at Offside, the impressive new Iranian film from Jafar Panahi, might prove enlightening for the folk who make these decisions. Focusing on the final leg of Iran's successful campaign to qualify for Germany 2006 - a 1-0 defeat of Bahrain - this nimble, naturalistic comedy follows a group of women, prohibited from mixing with male fans, as they seek to gain entry to the stadium.

In some parts of the world, it seems, women are prepared to put on disguises and risk arrest to watch the football. Would they behave differently if there were a Meg Ryan film on at the Tehran Ultraplex?

Anyway. Panahi, whose excellent 2000 film The Circle used far grimmer stories to make similar points about gender politics in Iran, begins with one young girl, her face painted in the team's colours, her hair concealed in a cap, making her way to the stadium on a bus. During an unscheduled stop, another supporter in a Brazil shirt sees through her disguise. But, rather than expressing outrage, the young man offers the girl his encouragement.

This exchange helps set the film's largely good-natured tone. The girl, having panicked at the prospect of a body search, finds herself corralled with another handful of female fans. The soldiers monitoring them try rather pathetically to justify the regulations forbidding women from entering the ground - they will, the disgruntled recruits suggest, hear the most appalling swearing - but it is clear their hearts aren't really in it.

As the soldiers begin a running commentary for their detainees, the picture takes on the quality of a piece of absurdist drama. Things get weirder still when one of the girls is asked to wear a mask fashioned from a poster of an Iranian player (Ali Karimi, apparently), so that she can be escorted into the men's lavatory without causing a riot.

Beneath all the comedy, however, one can detect a simmering fury at the women's plight. The picture, which was filmed with digital equipment around and about the actual match, may end with a street carnival, but we are left in no doubt that the team's success will do nothing to change the female supporters' unhappy position. Think of them when Iran play Mexico on Sunday.