Director Mohammad Rasoulof lives in exile from his native Iran. In 2022, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison, a fine, and flogging as a purported threat to Iran's national security. He did what any rational person would do; he fled.
So when Rasoulof makes an intimate film about the impact of oppression, you can be sure he knows what he's talking about. In The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof builds a story around a moment in which protesters flooded the streets of Teheran, decrying the fate of a 22-year-old woman who died in custody after being arrested for improper wearing of her hijab.
This uprising serves as a backdrop for a story about a family living under escalating levels of stress. Dad (Missagh Zareh) receives a promotion to a job of interrogator for the state, a particularly fraught position because so-called "investigative judges" can authorize the death penalty for dissidents. Zareh's Iman had been hoping for a different, more prestigious job.
Iman has two daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). The natural rambunctiousness of these young women prompts Mom (Soheila Golestani) to urge caution lest Dad be taken off the promotion track she hopes will bring a better apartment.
Filmed in secret, The Seed of the Sacred Fig takes a multi-layered approach to its story after a protester (Niousha Akashi) befriends the girls. Mom sees the young activist as a threat to the family's security.
Gradually, Rasoulof tightens the tension that grips the household where Golestani's character has insisted on turning a blind eye to her husband's work.
Rasoulof creates a stir when Iman's boss gives him a pistol for protection. Interrogators aren't the most popular guys in their neighborhoods. When the weapon vanishes from the family's apartment, panic ensues. Dad's career may have been jeopardized, possibly by someone in the family.
Will Iman be more influenced by his fear or by love for his wife and daughters? For a man who worries that missteps not only may cost him his job but land him in prison, it seems an impossible choice?
As the story progresses, Mom becomes less compliant. Eventually, Iman brings his family to the mountain village where he grew up. There, he hopes to settle matters, learning what happened to the fun and restoring the norm that allowed him to enjoy his patriarchal status while doing dirty work for the regime.
Until this point, his family has helped Iman create the denial on which his self-respect hinges.
The power of brutal repression squeezes characters and viewers alike, and the final act of this 172 minute proves as nerve-wracking as any thriller.
If you entertain any doubts about what it might be like to live in a theocratic autocracy, Rasoulof's movie will dispel them. Oppression isn't something that can be walled off from one’s personal life. Like a deadly fog, it seeps under doorways, corrupting ties once thought inviolable. Both defiance and complicity exact their price.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig proves an essential, chastening and meticulous depiction of how abusive power not only corrupts social institutions, it penetrates and sullies ordinary life.*
Note: Akashi, Rostami, Maleki, and Golestani reportedly now live in exile.
No comments:
Post a Comment