'Taboo' probes Tehran's libertine underworld

``Tehran Taboo,'' is a handsomely animated feature that makes an unassailable point about the hardships of life in today's Iran, mostly involving sexual morality and the status of women.

At times, however, the film belabors its points. It's so heavily loaded with grievances that it begins to feel one-dimensional, though it's impossible to argue with its compassion for its characters, whose sufferings are imposed by an intensely repressive society.

The director, Ali Soozandeh, born in Iran and now a citizen of Germany, has chosen technique of rotoscoping, which uses images that have been traced over live-action footage, to tell his intertwining tragic stories. Rotoscoping is a way of nudging animation toward realism without entirely losing its fantastical effect, allowing the filmmaker to slightly blunt the shock of some of the movie's material.

The titular ``taboo'' is not used lightly -- there is strong stuff here (it's certainly not animation for children). The tales are partly set in Tehran's libertine underworld, which seem surprisingly Western with its prostitution and other forms of illicit sex, as well as nightclubbing and drug use. In fact, this German-Austrian co-production could never have been filmed in the director's native land.

The stories involve several women, including a prostitute, and a male musician. The hooker, Pari (Elmira Rafizadeh), keeps her young son nearby even when servicing clients. She's married to an imprisoned drug addict, and in an attempt to get her divorce papers signed, agrees to become the kept woman of a ``revolutionary'' judge. Pari has a strong enough personality not to be destroyed by her horrific situation.

Sara (Zara Amir Ebrahimi) is a pregnant woman married to a banker, but secretly she doesn't want to have a child. She would rather get a job to escape living with her in-laws, but there's no chance her spouse will agree. (Women having to get permission from husbands and male relatives is a constant theme here.) By chance she becomes friends with Pari.

The musician, Babak (Arash Marandi), makes avant-garde recordings that have no chance of being officially approved for release. He makes love to a girl he meets one night at a nightclub, only to be informed the next day that she lost her virginity to him, and if her fiance finds out, he'll kill them both. This leads him on a desperate hunt for a shady doctor to ``restore'' her, and he even tries to buy what he's told is a fake hymen. (This last bit has unintentionally comic overtones.)

The ending, which attempts to meld tragedy and pathos, struck me as overwrought. But for all its flaws, the film is a sobering reminder that there are places where executions are carried out in public and where an unmarried couple can run afoul of the police simply because they are holding hands.

Walter Addiego is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: waddiego@sfchronicle.com.

Tehran Taboo

2 stars out of 4 stars Animated drama. With Elmira Rafizadeh, Zara Amir Ebrahimi, Arash Marandi. Directed by Ali Soozandeh. In Persian with English subtitles. Not rated. 90 minutes.