‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Mohammad Rasoulof’s Act of Defiance [Festival du Nouveau Cinéma 2024]
Mohammad Rasoulof confronts and rejects state propaganda in his daring and courageous The Seed of the Sacred Fig and makes the most critical piece of political media of the decade so far.
At the end of the screening of Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal, an audience member began to chant “Femmes, vie, liberté” (Woman, Life, Freedom). Most of the audience quickly responded with the same. This led to an enthusiastic standing ovation, not only for the film itself but for Rasoulof’s courage in exposing the truth of Iran’s media censorship and what is occurring in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death by the state police for allegedly ‘improperly’ wearing a Hijab.
In approaching The Seed of the Sacred Fig, one must understand that women have been forced to wear the Hijab since 1979, and severe penalties are taken if they do not respect this. But the law has been challenged since its very inception, with women taking to the streets and removing their Hijabs, which is, in this case, defined by them as a symbol of marginalization and oppression. This, of course, is not reported by the media, which parrot the official talking points of Iran’s authoritarian regime, while social media is also filtered to reflect state propaganda. That said, some videos are found and demonstrate what’s truly occurring before they are quickly removed.
This is how The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins, with Rasoulof juxtaposing his story with frequently distressing real-life videos of protests, which see citizens being brutally beaten (if not killed) on the streets for refusing to wear the Hijab and people documenting the truth shot by the police. One such video films the police beating a citizen on the street, who eventually looks at the person filming and shoots them without hesitation. Meanwhile, the media does not talk about any of the protests occurring and gaslights its citizens into thinking, for example, that a woman died of a stroke inside a police station when she was, in reality, beaten to death.
It’s partly why Rasoulof had to shoot the movie clandestinely and smuggle his footage to an editor in Germany to avoid any censorship from the state. When the movie was announced as being not only part of the official selection but would compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the authorities began to interrogate the cast and crew, leading to the filmmaker being sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, and a fine. Rasoulof ultimately fled Iran from Europe and is now in exile, likely never to return to his home country.
He and several cast and crew members who joined him in exile attended the film’s world premiere at Cannes. At the festival, he pleaded to Iranian cineasts never to kowtow to fear perpetuated by the Islamic State, saying, “They want to discourage us – but don’t let yourself be intimidated. They have no other weapon but fear. We have to fight for a dignified life in our country.”
The first half of the movie directly confronts the prevailing narrative by way of Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), two young women who understand the television news feed a pack of lies to their parents, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and Iman (Missagh Zareh). They have seen firsthand what has been unfolding in front of their eyes, either through social media or when one of their best friends is shot in the face by the authorities for refusing to wear a Hijab to school. They directly challenge the ideologies believed by their parents, particularly their father, who has recently been appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court.
He has no experience as an investigating judge, nor is the state expecting him to have any. He has instead been hired to approve death sentences without looking at the evidence. At first, Iman rejects this proposition but quickly changes his mind after learning that his superior’s office is wiretapped. However, he does not tell his family what he does. This eventually causes great friction when Najmeh begins to experience disillusionment regarding the state’s propaganda when one of Rezvan’s closest friends gets arrested after being shot and has since been missing, almost as if she never existed in the first place. It gets even more upsetting for the family when Najmeh learns that Iman has been issued a handgun for his protection and keeps this information secret from his children.
From there, The Seed of the Sacred Fig shifts gears and almost becomes an entirely different film altogether. One morning, Iman wakes up and sees that his gun is missing. The brilliant camerawork from cinematographer Pooyan Aghababei represents a thrilling distortion of his perspective as Iman begins to experience pure paranoia, immediately suspecting his children, who had no idea he even had a gun in the first place. Rasoulof slowly begins to move away from the real-life footage his children are seeing on social media and turns The Seed of the Sacred Fig into an investigative thriller of sorts, where Iman’s children are subject to tense interrogation techniques to figure out if they indeed stole his gun.
This creative choice may alienate viewers initially drawn into Rasoulof’s angry but urgent act of defiance, which speaks truth to power in ways few political filmmakers would even dare to show on screen. Defying oppressive forces like these in such an open way to fight for the freedom of all Iranians is more than what many critics refer to as a ‘brave’ gesture. It’s the only justifiable course of action to expose the government’s lies and plead for what Rasoulof states as a ‘dignified’ life and a society that can be unafraid to express itself freely, politically, and socially.
\But if you pay attention to the consuming drama that unfolds in front of your eyes, you’ll notice how Rasoulof communicates with what its first section exposed. Already, we know that its women have reclaimed their agency to think and express themselves on their own, while Iman becomes more controlling in his ideological rabbit hole. But he begins to wrestle with his inner feelings, not only through his family but also within society. For example, he begins wearing a mask in public when his address is leaked online as people begin to find out what he has been doing. He feels great shame but is afraid of saying so to anyone.
He now attempts to justify his own actions towards his family as he grows more distant from the ones who now long for a better, freer life. The shift is slow and deliberate (one must know the movie runs 168 minutes long but always makes the most of its runtime) and doesn’t happen suddenly. Instead, it follows a series of events that further radicalizes him into propaganda while the women understand the ‘pack of lies’ Iman has been blindly following. He thinks it will give his family safety and prosperity when, in turn, will do the exact opposite. Each respective actor does terrific work, but Mahsa Rostami delivers the film’s best performance as Rezvan, who isn’t afraid to stand up for what’s right, whether in the streets or inside her own family.
It’s almost baffling that many audience members have rejected The Seed of the Sacred Fig’s second half when it lays out what its first section says but within the film’s diegesis. This is not a simple social justice movie that exposes the lies of the Iranian government in a blunt and in-your-face way. Well, scratch that. Its first section absolutely does. The violence shown here will be hard for many people to stomach after voluntarily ignoring it for so long. However, Rasoulof goes much further than that in its second section and shows how the government’s lies penetrate, and divide, families. This is visually represented in how Rasoulof and Aghababei block the camera in several sequences, not only to exacerbate the paranoia felt by Iman (such as one refrigerator door shot that threw this critic out of a loop) but the division within the family, particularly by way of its ending.
Rezvan and Sana (during the climax, Maleki steals the show with an impeccably calculated, silent performance) know what they must do to attain freedom. But they don’t know if they have the strength to take action to accomplish it. Rasoulof doesn’t have the answers to their plight but gives them enough agency to reclaim the narrative and topple the authoritarian regime inside their house. Yes, Iman is a metaphor for the state, and Rasoulof is incredibly unsubtle about it, too. But it’s part of what makes The Seed of the Sacred Fig a vital piece of political media. It is rarely seen in this day and age of incurious movies that introduce a political text but are too deathly afraid to say anything meaningful or impactful about its ideals.
But Rasoulof isn’t afraid. He doesn’t care if his life and freedom are on the line because not speaking out against Iran’s oppression of women’s rights would be a more significant mistake than not risking his life to ensure they live freely, without any restrictions on the way they dress, think, and say. With The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof directly engages with the audience and asks them to champion the freedom of all Iranians. It’s in that vein that the audience began to chant as the final shot of the film saw real-life students yell, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Women, Life, Freedom).
In this case, cinema isn’t so much boxed in as a simple art form but can be a political object and an act of resistance, bound to inspire social change and resistance against the oppressive forces that have tried to censor Iranians for telling the truth and opposing authoritarianism. As a result, Rasoulof crafts not only the best and most urgent film of 2024 but also one of the most critical acts of defiance seen this decade that warrants all of your time and attention.