Benefiting from the tenets of Comparative Cultural Studies, this article illustrates the role of power and patriarchal discourse in Ten (dir. Kiarostami, 2007) and The Circle (dir. Panahi, 2000). Though Foucauldian notion of power talks of ‘circulation’, it seems that men’s realm of power-circulation is closed to women. Women are at the center of the fluid narrative in both Ten and Circle; nevertheless, they are a part of male narrative structure. That’s how each discourse circulates throughout the transdiscursive network while it is affected by the power relations of other discourses. Highly acclaimed as feminist films in Occidental Cannes and Venice Film Festival, they seem to win the jury’s admiration for their Oriental woman-issue approach. In these films, women can practice their power in a feminine-defined cobweb. But when it comes to patriarchal discourse, they are unable to be a link in the chain of power. Ironically, films with feministic spice are cooked by men. This systematic play of differences foregrounds the Derridan space between ‘feminist’ and ‘male’ in “feminist . . . male director” and diminishes this space in “patriarchal female director”. How far a male director can stay faithful to feminism if the very first ‘take’ of his film is precipitating a series of “Male Gaze” during the whole course of production?! And when a film wins feminist praise, can it be dethroned on the base of the same theory? It seems that in the kingdom of dominant discourse, some narratives are rapped in a subversive foil while they are reinforcing at core; there’s a degree of subversion from faithful to faith-felt, faith-fool and faith-fail. Thus, reading these films doesn’t intend to be binary-oppositional. Utilizing Foucault\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s dictum that ‘where there is power there is resistance’, this paper discusses the resistance which is present at each transformation in the power structure.

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