Availability: Showing in a limited number of theaters nationally and internationally. A February 18 streaming date has just been set (likely because it was recently nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film). See JustWatch here for future viewing options.
The Political Is Personal
As “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” opens, Iman, a lawyer who has faithfully served in Iran’s legal system for 20 years, has just been promoted to investigative judge in the Revolutionary Court system in Tehran, making his wife and two daughters happy that they will have a larger house and more government perks. We sympathize with Iman (Missagh Zareh) when we realize his job is precarious. He is instantly thrust into a moral dilemma: ordered to sign a determination of guilt leading to the death penalty for a case he has yet to investigate. “You’re asked to do it; so do it,” says his loyal wife.
Iman is instantly thrust into a moral dilemma.
Within a few days of being promoted, Iman’s caseload jumps to several hundred a day, requiring more summary determinations of guilt. The accused are protesters arrested and jailed by the regime. A young woman, Mahsa Amini, has been arrested by the “Guidance Patrol” for not properly wearing her hijab and has died in police custody. Amini’s case and the 2022-2023 protests that followed are real. The film’s use of documentary footage of police arrests and beatings, as well as women marching and burning their head scarves, is frightening, chilling, and at times heartening.
Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) is solicitous of her husband Iman (Missagh Zareh), recognizing the stress on him caused by the ethically challenging demands of his new position.
The regime’s repression tears at the fabric of civil society and the bonds that hold together Iman’s family. What does Iran’s religiously rigid, authoritarian environment do to a pious, essentially honest husband who wants the best for his family? to his supportive, devout wife? and to his somewhat rebellious and modern daughters, one a college student, the other a teenager?
The three women in the family - from left, the mother Najmeh (Golestani), older daughter Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) , and younger daughter Sana (Setareh Maleki) - bring differing responses to the crises in and outside of the family.
Disparate views—of the prerogatives of youth (younger daughter Sana wants blue hair and painted fingernails), of justice (do the protesters deserve their treatment at the hands of the government?), of the impositions of the institution of patriarchy (firmly ensconced in this family), and of the place of religion in a religious state—clash early on in the narrative. College-age Rezvan brings home a fellow student, Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), who has been mutilated with buckshot in the protests. Rezvan’s mother, who up to this point has been protecting her husband from anything that might jeopardize his career, picks pieces of metal from Sadaf’s bloodied face, in a gruesome scene that is difficult to watch.
There are no easy stands to take here. The daughters side with the protesters, the mother with her husband and the religious state. But are those positions fixed? Can circumstances bring out nuances and flexibility in what seem to be monolithic value systems?
The two daughters have their own distinct approaches to the family and to the chaos outside their windows.
Soheila Golestani portrays the mother, Najmeh, as both a stoic and a problem-solver. Najmeh is the fulcrum between husband and daughters, between her empathetic instincts and Iman’s ambition to rise in the legal bureaucracy, between the regime’s religiosity and her moral values. The daughters—Sana (Setareh Maleki) the younger and Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) the older—have their own distinct approaches to the family and to the chaos outside their windows. Rezvan makes assertive political statements that roil the conversation at the dinner table and deeply trouble Iman. Sana is more physical, joyful, and slyly prone to action. These women will evolve and surprise us, while collectively representing the strong Iranian female.
Interrogation takes place within the family too. Left, Najmeh (Golestani)
being interviewed by a man she and her husband view as a family friend,
Alireza (played by an actor who prefers to remain anonymous,
which tells you something about the circumstances in which the film was shot).
Director Mohammad Rasoulof’s Oscar-nominated film is part thriller—where is Iman’s missing gun?—and, in its last 30 minutes, part horror. Both were ingredients in “Parasite,” the Korean film that won the 2020 Best Picture Oscar. But Rasoulof’s efforts at horror seem forced, unnecessary, and even absurd. What happens to Iman is undoubtedly a tragedy, but his actions in the film’s final minutes don’t do justice to the character or his circumstances, challenging as they are.
What happens to Iman is undoubtedly a tragedy, but his actions in the film’s final minutes don’t do justice to the character or his circumstances.
Set against the reality of contemporary Iran, Rasoulof’s critique of the country’s political system is all the more powerful because it unwinds within an otherwise ordinary, middle-class family, with suspicion, betrayal, interrogation, and violence mirroring developments on the political level. As a result, Rasoulof, after serving time in prison for support of an earlier protest, filmed “Sacred Fig” clandestinely, then fled Iran, spiriting the footage to Germany.
One can’t help but think of the current administration in Washington, D.C. and its threat to fire anyone who isn’t loyal to the cause, whether that cause is just or not; its interrogation of FBI agents to determine who might have participated in investigating the January 6 attacks; and its McCarthyite insistence that people “inform” on each other. American federal employees are already dealing with family crises and ethical issues of the sort Iman faced. It won’t be long before conversations at the dinner table become strained, and then rancorous. And after that, who can tell?
She says: Besides being just a darn good film, Rasoulof’s work reminded me of Amini’s death and introduced me to the strength of female protest in Iran.
He says: Yes, it’s a darn good film, Dianne. What a shame that in foregrounding the story of the three women, it virtually abandons Iman, then turns him into a monster. Isn’t that blaming the victim?
Date: 2024
Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
Starring: Missagh Zareh, Soheila Golestani, Setareh Maleki, Mahsa Rostami, Niousha Akhshi
Country: Germany
Language: Persian
Runtime: 167 minutes
Oscar Nominations: Best International Feature Film (Germany)
Other Awards: 29 wins and 59 nominations, including 5 wins at Cannes (one, the Jury Special Prize)
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