Freedom Hangs by a Thread in "The Seed of The Sacred Fig"
Criticism leveled at the brutality exacted on the Mahsa Amini protestors in Iran in 2022 gets examined in this thriller.
Context First
The Seed of the Sacred Fig [Trailer], by exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, explores the profound societal upheaval following the 2022 Iranian protests through the lens of one family’s tragic story. It is, without a doubt, a cinematic indictment of the human cost of living under an oppressive regime, notably one anchored in Islamic Fundamentalism.
The real-life death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by the police for wearing her hijab improperly and later died in police custody, ignited one of the largest protest movements in Iran. Hundreds of protestors were killed, and tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned. The movement's rallying cry, 'Woman, Life, Freedom,' surfaced themes of self-determination and dignity in the face of tyrannical rule, challenging Iran’s authoritarian systems that deny basic human rights, standing against state censorship and violence perpetrated under the guise of religious authority.
The Film: Distrust, Mistrust & Paranoia
It’s under this backdrop that the film unfolds. We meet Iman, a name which, in Farsi, means “Faith” or “Belief," who has been recently promoted to Investigating Judge, a higher-ranking position that comes with political aspirations of one day working for the Revolutionary Guard. The opening scene finds Iman, a devout Muslim, praying in a desolate, rural, and remote Persian village, which we later learn is his ancestral home, after which he returns to his city apartment in Tehran to the comfort of his wife’s tea. They speak in soft, hushed voices. It’s late, and even if the kids are still awake, they want this conversation to be quiet, as they do with most of their discussions, because every interaction in this film purports to be a secret, and intelligence is deemed sacred and dangerous.
In an intimate conversation with his wife, Najmeh, Iman discusses the material benefits of his recent promotion (a new three-bedroom apartment) and its additional societal pressures, primarily the need to censor their relationships with others and for their daughters, teen Sana and college student Rezvan, to avoid social media. Iman’s new job also comes with a gun, which Najmeh appears to be uncomfortable with, as he keeps it in the house.
“Here you have to fight. You have to earn your stripes.”
A Tale of Two Stories
Despite living in Iran, Rezvan and Sana, Iman and Najmeh’s daughters, enjoy many of the same technological privileges that children living in democratic countries do. As digital natives growing up with social media and the dissemination of information via platforms like TikTok, where everything is shared, as the protests erupt, they turn to the flurry of videos coming in that present the Regime’s violence perpetrated against the protestors in the uprising. In contrast, Iman and Najmeh watch state-sponsored television and believe what they are told. One area that is a repeated mantra by Najmeh to Iman is the caution that if he’s not around to shape his daughters’ perspectives and inform their views, they will be shaped by someone else, and they very much are.
The first half of the film centers around the protests that erupt into an incident at the college campus where Rezvan and her friend, Sadaf, are attending. Both girls get caught in the violence, with Sadaf paying the ultimate price, taking shrapnel to her face when a buckshot is fired at her. In a state of panic, Rezvan brings Sadaf to her home for treatment, where Najmeh has warned her never to bring her friend for fear of what would happen if their father found out. As there is no way for Sadaf to seek treatment (if they take her to a hospital, she will be arrested), Najmeh tenderly cares for her, removing the many pieces of shrapnel from Sadaf's face and bandaging her. Throughout the first half, as Rezvan applies pressure to her mother to find Sadaf after she abruptly leaves their home, her mother attempts to find her unbeknownst to Iman.
Side Note: Iman is mostly absent from the screen for the first half of the film, and at a 2:45 run time, that’s a lot. His presence is felt through his wife’s laments and phone calls. When he appears, it’s mostly scenes depicting him coming back from work late, appearing visibly strained, showering or washing himself (in an act to purify him from the day’s sins), and taking tea from his wife while sitting in bed. As such, the first half of the film and its heart are anchored in the story of Najmeh, Rezvan, and Sana.
The Iman Goes Postal Part
The last half of the film intensifies Iman’s descent into full-on evil. His paranoid behavior and activities lead him to imprison his family in his childhood home, back where the film starts. The pace is generally faster, and yet, cutting some of it may have helped with the overall length of the film.
I attended a screening of this film, which hosted a live panel of Iranian experts after the film. The lively discussion was comprised of a Political Science professor, a film programmer, and a producer/co-founder of a film production company. The professor raised the point of having seen this film twice, and it struck him that, in fact, the two parts of the film are disconnected. I’d agree. If I were watching a Wes Andersen film, I would expect two self-contained stories labeled as such. While the first part about the uprising and protests, story-wise, makes sense as far as mounting to the explosive second half with Iman’s distrust of his family, the loose ends with Sadaf’s fate short-changed the arc of the story and didn’t serve it as well as it might have.
“I’ve always protected you from seeing the true nature of your father.”
In Summary
Not Without My Daughter, the 1991 film based on the real-life heroic escape of Betty Mahmoody, an American woman, married to an Iranian man, Sayyid, who, along with her daughter, Mahtob, travels to Tehran with her husband on what she was led to believe was a 2-week vacation, and which ended up being 18 months of imprisonment by Sayyid, informed my perspective of the cross-cultural challenges of navigating divergent perspectives on gender equality and personal autonomy in relationships. Over the course of the movie, Betty understands that Sayyid likely plans to kill her if she doesn’t get in line. Tensions are high, with the memo that something sinister can and will happen because she’s in a foreign country where people disappear and are forgotten.
While watching The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I thought of this movie a few times, mostly because of the parallels in the disposability of women's and girls' lives in a culture that seeks to control and suppress them. I would argue that The Seed of the Sacred Fig is more nuanced and impressive from a cinematic story perspective and as a poetic narrative, but its message of threat and caution is high. In both scenarios, miraculously, the women, through hard work and self-determination, make choices to liberate themselves, but in the more recent film, we don’t know where that decision ends up. There’s no one-way ticket to the U.S. waiting for Najmeh, Rezvan, and Sana. If they resume their lives in Tehran, arrest and interrogations, much like the one Iman subjected them to, are given, and if not a death sentence, a heavy prison term with little likelihood of survival.
Some Additional Facts: Against All Odds
Director Mohammad Rasoulof is currently living in exile in Germany.
This movie was filmed in Iran, secretly, without the knowledge of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The entire filming took place in 70 days. Rasoulof wasn’t able to be on set with the actors (common in Iran) and had to have a contingency plan in place in case plainclothed police officers arrived at the filming of the scenes.
The director stated that he was in the middle of filming when he learned of his renewed prison sentence. Rasoulof was counting on the appeal process to take a long time to review his case.
Non-U.S. films, those across Europe and Asia, for example, are generally state-sponsored and produced via national funds. Germany and France have the highest budgets for films. As such, you will note this film, in the Golden Globe Best Non-English nomination, was listed as “Germany, France, Iran,” and if it wins an Oscar, it will be for Germany.
If a gun is shown [repeatedly] in the first act, it will be fired in the third. I’ll amend this to say, “If a gun is shown repeatedly in the first act, then disappears in the second, it will be recovered and fired in the final act.”
"Here's Johnny!" One audience member who attended the screening likened Iman’s full-scale descent into madness in the second half to Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining. This observation is spot on.
One Inconsistency (among a few)
I fully believe that if Iman were a mid-to-high-ranking official, his home would be surveilled, and listening devices would be used. It makes zero sense that this wasn’t mentioned in the story or considered in all the secret, covert actions he and his wife took to conceal their lives.
A Powerful Film That Depicts Authoritarian/Police-State Societies, Secrets & Surveillance Well
Twin Films - MUSIC Themed Fun
For this month’s film club chat, we have TWIN Films, which refer to films with the same or similar plots released at different studios at different times.
It’s not too late to catch up on our chat on Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022) [Link here]
Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (2023) will be discussed on Sunday, 1/19. Stay tuned.
I can’t wait to see this
A great review and I will definitely be going to watch the film in the next couple of weeks. It was on my radar this weekend, but we ended up watching Nickel Boys instead. Side note: when you do a review and I haven't watched the film yet, I usually go back to read it again once I've seen the film!