‘Seed of the Sacred Fig’: The Film That Made Its Director Flee Iran to Avoid Prison

‘Seed of the Sacred Fig’: The Film That Made Its Director Flee Iran to Avoid Prison

The Daily Beast -Nov27th2024

Entertainment Critic

The insidious monstrousness of Iran’s regime and culture is brutally censured by The Seed of the Sacred Fig, in theaters Nov. 27, an acclaimed import whose writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof was forced—on the eve of its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—to flee his homeland due to being sentenced by the Islamic Republic to eight years in prison and a flogging (along with having his property confiscated).

A social verité drama that mutates into a nerve-wracking thriller, the filmmaker’s latest is epic in length, at 168 minutes, and yet intimate in execution, not to mention increasingly propulsive as it barrels towards a catastrophic confrontation. Especially at this precise moment in Middle East history, its pulse-pounding denunciation resounds with seismic impact

In modern-day Tehran, Iman (Missagh Zareh) is promoted to the position of investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court. This is great news to both him and his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), who’s excited by the prospect of a higher salary and a more luxurious home that affords their teenage daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) their own bedrooms.

Iman has never told his children what he does for a living, but in the wake of this advancement, he confides in them. They’re less than ecstatic about this disclosure, considering that investigating judges—because they rubber-stamp death sentences—are under constant threat of retaliation, and thus they must keep quiet about his profession, refrain from using social media, and carefully vet their relationships.

Iman comes across as a stern and remote paterfamilias, if one who’s a bit shaken by the requirement that he now carry a firearm. He’s also not overjoyed by the fact that he’s being asked to approve death sentences without first reviewing the cases in question. Still, heeding the advice of his colleague Ghaderi (Reza Akhlaghirad), he goes with the flow lest he be seen as untrustworthy and expendable, as was the case with his predecessor.

Further complicating Iman’s transition, Tehran becomes gripped by protests led by female students, whose slogans (“Down with the dictator!”, “Down with theocracy!” “Women. Life. Freedom!”) are a direct rebuke to the country’s misogynistic power structure. Iman is initially sheltered from this commotion, but that’s not the case for his clan thanks to Rezvan’s friendship with Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), a college student who’s horribly injured in a protest melee.