In the penultimate scene of Abbas Kiarostami's Ten (Dah, 2003, Iran), we are witness to an utterly unexpected event: an unveiling. A young woman passenger in the car of Mania, the film's protagonist, takes off her hejab in front of the camera. At the beginning of the scene, we see the young woman with a white hejab wrapped tightly around her head and tied severely at the chin. The excess material of the veil, beyond where it has been tied, is dramatically billowed on her chest. The whiteness of the veil has a cold, blue tone and is stark against the young woman's black clothing and the black seats and frame of the car. In the window to her left, we see a vivid reflection of the veil from the side. The reflection mostly shows the material of the white veil, with only a sliver of the woman's profile. Unlike the reflection, the shot centres the young woman's face and frames it with the white veil. This character was introduced in an earlier scene, where she appeared in a loose-fitting black shawl whose spacious relation to her face intimated her carefree and casual attitude. Her new, austere garb conveys a different mood and prompts Mania to say, ‘You’ve become so modest. Why have you tied it like that? It doesn't suit you.’

The young woman has been telling Mania about a break-up precipitated by the discovery that her boyfriend doesn't want to marry her and is in love with someone else. When Mania asks after the tightness of her hejab, the shot returns to the young woman and the image loses focus and blurs slightly due to the car driving over large bumps in the road. She begins to undo her hejab, at first loosening the tie and holding the material away from her face. A facial roundness that was composed by the structure of the tight veil gives way to an elongated visage. As she holds the veil away from her chin, it stretches against the sides of her face, once again containing the face, which has the effect of emphasising the roundness of her cheeks. In a series of rapid, tidy movements, she pulls the hejab around her face and then away from it, moving towards the back of her head, all while looking at herself in the mirror.