The death of her by-then-exiled husband from cancer, the 2001 suicide of her daughter Leila and now the death of her youngest son. True, I had been feeling rather disappointed in Farah until that moment. She was all over the film Valentino: The Last Emperor, which I’d recently seen, and I couldn’t help but wish that instead of just mingling with the fashion glitterati of Europe, she would engage in thoughtful charity and be terribly glamorous — like Queen Rania of Jordan.
The family remains of great emotional relevance. The Pahlavis themselves know that they stand no chance of being reinserted into politically, though they must more than suspect that their moments of personal grief will be reflected in monumental ways on the larger stage of the political imagination. Indeed, the initial statement by older brother Reza on his website starkly attributed Alireza’s suicide to the younger man’s despair over — an all-too-blatant political stance that only opened the family up to criticism. Certainly, the shattering fall of his father and the dislocation of exile contributed to Alireza’s depression and pain.
