The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) is thrilled when her husband Iman (Missagh Zareh, "A Man of Integrity") is promoted to investigative judge in Tehran's Revolutionary Court, delighted that their college age and teenaged daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) will no longer have to share a bedroom. But the promotion comes with drawbacks as the family's behavior must be beyond reproach and Iman is given a gun for protection against retribution. Then Mahsa Amini is murdered after being arrested for not wearing a hijab and Rezvan and Sana's support for the subsequent women's uprising followed by Iman's gun going missing foments inter familial paranoia in "The Seed of the Sacred Fig."
Laura's Review: B+
Writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof ("There Is No Evil") was arrested in 2022, just as the women's uprising in Iran drew global headlines. With an additional eight year prison sentence hanging over his head, Rasoulof shot his latest political thriller in secret before fleeing the country on foot, sure that his latest would only add years to his incarceration. The 2024 Cannes Jury Award winning film's title refers to a specific fig tree whose roots strangle those of trees around it, a metaphor for Iranian oppression.
At first, Iman is troubled by his new job, immediately tasked by a prosecutor to hand over a death sentence, something his predecessor had refused to do, creating the opening he has now stepped into. When he tries to talk to his colleague and mentor Ghaderi (Reza Akhlaghirad, "A Man of Integrity") about it, he's passed a note stating 'wiretap.' The family 'celebration' out at a restaurant is a muted affair, Rezvan and Sana appearing shrouded in their hijabs. When Rezvan asks her mother if her friend Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), whose dorm room is not yet ready, can stay overnight, she's shocked by her mom's refusal, Najmeh relenting but insisting Sadaf must stay in the girls' room and not be seen by Iman.
Two events escalate family tensions to unbearable levels. First, Rezvan calls her mother to pick her up as a student protest begins to turn violent. Sadaf has gone missing, Rezvan later discovering she's been shot in the face by police and Sana invents an errand to get Najmeh out of the apartment so Rezvan can hustle Sadaf inside. When Najmeh actually sees what's happened to the innocent young woman, the same woman who questioned Rezvan and Sana's accusations of lying newscasts begins to identify more strongly with her daughters' point of view. And true to Chekhov's gun theory, Iman, who'd kept his gun in a bedside table draw, discovers it is missing and begins to suspect everyone in his home.
Rasoulof keeps tightening the reins, tension growing both externally and internally. Ghaderi warns Iman he may lose all professional credibility if his gun cannot be found. Namjeh runs into a friend, Fatemeh (Shiva Ordooie), asking for help locating Sadaf who has disappeared again. And, after Iman is often kept late at work, when they finally have a family dinner at home, Rezvan gets into an ideological argument with her dad while Najmeh tries to keep the peace. Then Iman does the unthinkable.
If there is a problem with the film it is with the character of Iman, whose swerve towards the regime seems in conflict with his earlier moral quandary, the loss of his gun his whole motivating factor, yet Rasoulof succeeds in making his point about how fear feeds into oppression and if his finale goes over the top, it is also a fierce swipe at patriarchal societies. Cinematagrapher Pooyan Aghababaei accentuates the opposite with closeups of Najmeh's hands, the woman who lovingly trimmed her husband's beard later removing shrapnel from a young woman's face. Karzan Mahmood's low bass strings intensify the mood of claustrophobic paranoia.
"The Seed of the Sacred Fig" is not only an artistic achievement but an act of bravery in speaking out against a nation's violation of human rights.
Robin's Review: B-
Neon releases "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" in theaters on 12/27/24.
