There couldn't be a better example of a work of art becoming an expression of strong dissent than Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof's latest film The Seed of the Sacred Fig. In the film, a judge, newly promoted as an investigator serving in the Revolutionary Court under the theocratic Islamic Republic, realises that the more powerful he got, the more powerless he has become. His new responsibilities, which include complete and blind obeisance to the regime, slowly become a burden far heavier than he can bear, eventually taking a toll on his family, which comprises a wife and two grown-up daughters.
The film is Rasoulouf's most daring work, for which he has been penalised by the Iranian government and forced to live in exile. The behind-the-scenes story alone can make a subject for another film. Although his previous films have been fervently political in nature, asking serious questions that most people wouldn't dare to, Rasoulouf takes a high-impact swing this time around, landing blows in all the right places.
To the viewer, the film serves as a wake-up call — a supremely bold, inspiring piece of work that addresses the grave dangers of living in a country where its residents are constantly watched and their liberties curtailed. But it also doesn't forget that it's supposed to be a work of cinema intended to hold its consumer in a vice-like grip.
And this the film does brilliantly in spite of its nearly three-hour runtime. Rasoulouf creates a film that behaves like a dystopian thriller. He achieves its intended effect with the most minimalistic, but not bland, approach. Rasoulouf's filmmaking style, as in all his previous films, is such that he gets the maximum impact from stationary frames and different kinds of close-ups. His approach is sparse and unvarnished but not lacking in finesse. The camera barely moves; the film creates the necessary urgency and sense of danger through its characters' behaviour and their expressions.
Set against the backdrop of the Iranian democracy movement, the protests in 2022 against the compulsory hijab imposed by the Islamic Republic, and the suspicious death of Mahsa Amini, the film sees Mohammed Rasoulouf voicing his protest through the two young daughters who are of the same age group as the deceased women we heard about in the news.
Needless to say, the judge and his wife grow increasingly concerned about the piercing questions directed at them by their daughters, who challenge the complacency and narrow-mindedness of their parents and the notion of the "God's law" to which they strictly adhere. The images of George Orwell's surveillance state and 'Big Brother' in his seminal novel 1984 immediately come rushing to our mind.
The footage of real-life protests, taken with the mobile phones of the spectators who had the misfortune of witnessing the deeply upsetting chaos, creates a tangible atmosphere of paranoia, convincingly relayed by his actors as they watch these haunting Instagram reels. Casting the right actors has always been one of Rasoulof's strongest qualities as a filmmaker. Be it Missagh Zareh as the conflicted judge Iman, Soheila Golestani as his conservative and dutiful wife Najmeh, or his daughters Rezvan (played by Mahsa Rostami) or Sana (played by Setareh Maleki), the actors rise to the challenge of painting a vivid, powerful picture of a family under crisis. This family, who were up until then under the assumption that their privileged existence could never suffer a dent, gets a rude awakening when, one day, a gun in the possession of Iman goes missing. The whole family comes under suspicion, including his wife, whom he found to be the most trustworthy of the three women in his life.
Aside from positioning the daughters' queries as his own, he makes them a channel through which the discerning, critical thinker can establish solidarity. Interestingly, Rasoulouf makes an attempt to humanise the mother by having her tell her daughters, in a brief moment of warmth, that they would've been able to understand her more had they experienced a life characterised by various inadequacies as she did.
As in his earlier film, There Is No Evil, which dealt with individuals trapped within the system who express guilt and remorse at being forced to partake in their government's morally reprehensible acts of injustice, Rasoulof begins his film with a tranquil portrait of an ordinary family going about their mundane day-to-day business, only to later shatter that illusion. And Rasoulof has the gift of doing this in a manner we least expect it. He is a purely visual storyteller practising a lost art — letting the images speak for themselves and gradually unravelling his characters' ulterior motives and fears. In the film's third act, we get a variation of the slasher and the chase thriller, with delightfully unpredictable results. To conclude, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is essential cinema.
Film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
Cast: Missagh Zareh, Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki
Rating: 4.5/5
