“All my son thinks about is pussy” seems to be a rather accurate, if blunt, assessment of the polygamous situation Heda and his four wives find themselves in. Polygamy seems to be used as the acceptable veneer behind which Heda can do what (and who) ever he likes. When the passion runs dry with his current wife he simply invites another surprise visitor for an impromptu tour of the house (a trick he performs at the end to make way for his fifth wife).

Whilst Four Wives, One Man is filmed in Iran, its location really has very little do with it. It is decidedly apolitical and as such can get straight to the nitty gritty of such a complex family arrangement. The relationships and tensions between the four wives and their husband fluctuate tremendously over the course of a well-paced hour and a quarter to give us an eclectic mix of humour, sadness and fierce rows. 

The coarse tongue of Heda’s mother takes comic centre stage for much of the documentary. I had expected a sombre matriarch but in her place we are given a grandmother whose comments would not sound out of place in the filthier sections of Cosmo. The flawless editing sets these hilarious moments against more subdued ones which gives us valuable breathing space, capturing the hypocrises and fickleness present in any relationship, but amplified in this one according to head count: one minute Heda’s second wife, Goli, is calling him “a son of a bitch”, the next they are laughing together whilst his fourth wife, Ziba, looks on.

The film feels constantly insightful but never intrusive: you feel embroiled in the wives’ gossips as they reveal their unhappiness with the well-practised laughter of acceptance: the second and third wives comparing Heda’s obsession with his latest wife to the way someone might feel about a new jumper they’d just bought. It is this sense of camaraderie with the women that draws us to the centre of their world and, very often, their sadness as Ziba confesses her desperation and failure to have a child.

Four Wives, One Man allows us a fascinating glimpse into an alien family background. The motivations behind such a set-up are not always made clear but an old Iranian woman insisting her daughter-in-laws “dye [their] pubic hair too!” goes a long way in making up for that.

Four Wives, One Man is available on 4oD.