Filmmaker, Jafar Panahi explores the various issues that surround Iranian woman from the core of Iranian society. The film begins in the hospital where a new life is brought into the world. The birth of a child is celebrated there, but at the same time, a dark future is foreseen through an old woman′s concern about her newborn granddaughter′s fate as a woman. And indeed, once the camera is taken outside the doors of the hospital, a society so oppressive towards women awaits. Jafar Panahi follows the trails of women and tells their stories one by one which only reveals a cold reality unfamiliar to other Iranian films. Abortion, street prostitution and child abandonment offer a frank report on the various forms of social injustice and contradictions imposed on the women living in Iran which end in the imprisonment of these women in the film. Likewise, Jafar Panahi adopts a significant format to critique this reality. As the title, The Circle suggests, this depressive state of Iranian women circulate which the filmmaker discloses by rotating the camera 360 degrees. (Kim Ji-Seok)