THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG - MIFF 2024

 

As per the MIFF guide: “In Tehran, the exemplary family of an investigating judge are tested by the dramatic events following a young woman’s death in police custody. Civil servant Iman has just been appointed to the Revolutionary Court, where he’s expected to extract confessions, serve death penalties to dissidents, and withhold information from loved ones. As demonstrations against compulsory hijab-wearing rock the city, Iman loses his gun and suspects his wife Najmeh and their two daughters – who’ve been protecting a protester – have stolen it, later subjecting them to interrogations as though they, too, have transgressed the law. Will Najmeh stand up to her husband, and to the state?”

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is a dangerous filmmaker, and by that I mean he is a danger to himself. His films are always political in nature and in a country like Iran, being so critical of the current regime the way he is in his films, Rasoulof leaves himself open to persecution from the authorities and the state, and he has felt their wrath on numerous occasions (including the present where he has been recently sentenced to eight years in prison due to his taking part in a protest). To say that the man has balls of steel to make the films that he does is an understatement, and his latest film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is yet another attack on the current regime and both its treatment of women, and their interrogation techniques. What is so dangerous about the film is that it takes place during a real, recent incident that happened in Iran back in 2022 when a 22 year old student, Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being arrested due to her hijab not covering her hair sufficiently. Outrage soon followed, as it was reported in the media that Amini died from a stroke, and not from a stroke caused by the injuries she sustained in her arrest, which was the real truth. This led to huge protests by the country's youth, particularly women, the amount and size of people involved never seen before in Iran. This is the backdrop where the story of Mohammad Rasoulof's “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” takes place, as Iman and Najmeh's two teenage daughters are increasingly disturbed by the current events taking place in their country. Not only that, they are becoming more aware of the skewed media coverage of the incident, as from the videos they have seen on the social media of their friends mixed up in the riots shows are very different reality to what is being reported on television.

First up, I have to say that “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is such a clever and brilliant title, not just for the poetic nature of it. In title cards before the story begins, it explains about a type of fig tree that implants its seeds into the branches of “host” trees, usually via bird droppings. As the fig tree grows and gets stronger, its roots intertwine with those of the other tree before the fig tree eventually takes over the original tree, killing it in the process. This is symbolic of the themes and story within the film, which is not at all hard to understand.

When the film began, and we learn that Iman has been promoted to an investigative judge, I was expecting the story to head down a completely different path, because as soon as Iman has received his promotion he is then expected to sign off on a death sentence on a case he has yet had the time to read (so has no idea if it is warranted or not). He is deeply disturbed by his superiors expecting him to toe the company line and sign away this person's life. He mentions that he has lived an honest and honourable life and done everything by the book and doesn't want to ruin a lifetime of reputation with one signature. His boss essentially tells him if he wants to keep the job, he must sign. This rocks Iman's world, and I thought that the film was going to be about this man and his moral dilemma, whether or not he will sign something he doesn't believe in. I thought we would ultimately see Iman revolt against the state, and see him suffer the consequences of this choice. However I was very shocked when Iman, who seemed so fair and honourable in these early scenes, is quickly turned and he becomes yet another puppet for the regime, and then the film itself was about something entirely different.

When Iman is given this new job, because it is such a dangerous position, it comes with a firearm for his and his family's protection. He keeps it hidden in a bedside drawer, that only his wife knows about, however when it goes missing, he believes that only his daughters or his wife could have stolen the gun (which if the authorities learn he has lost, will cost him three years in prison) and so the film is really about him interrogating his loved ones like they are criminals themselves, and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” ultimately becomes an allegory about the state, the way they interrogate people to get the results they want, and those who are willing to stand up and fight against them whatever the personal cost to them may be. Iman is essentially a stand-in for the state / regime, whilst his daughters are the current generation making a stand against a law they think is archaic and wrong. Where Najmeh, the girl's mother, stands is yet to be determined.

Something I felt was interesting was as “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” begins, it does so on a very large canvas, set in current day Tehran during the very real protests and riots of 2022. The more the film goes on though, the smaller the canvas and the world depicted gets, as it then comes about the protecting of an injured protester, Sadaf, who is also Rezvan's (the eldest daughter) friend. They hide her in their house, cleaning her wounds (which were remarkably similar, at least in location, to the wounds Mahsa Amini received in her beating), making her comfortable while hiding her from their father who believes that these “rioters” are getting what they deserve. By the end of the film, it is a small intimate canvas as the drama only involves the four family members themselves, but of course the meaning of these scenes relates to bigger themes than what is being depicted onscreen. This is such an angry film, you can feel Rasoulof seething at the way the youth of his country are treated by an outdated regime, and you can sense it is a cry for revolution as he clearly stands by all those protesting, particularly the women. In another dangerous move, Rasoulof uses real iPhone footage of the protesting and the authority's very questionable techniques to break them up and stop said footage being filmed. He uses this footage as the videos the two daughters are watching and are disgusted by, making them question the state and those who blindly work for them like their father. I must admit, I was personally horrified by some of the social media footage, and it really opened my eyes to just how bad the situation was over there in 2022. Probably the most chilling scene in the film though is when the three women of the family are sent to an undisclosed location to be interrogated about the missing gun. They are separated, blindfolded and then told that they have to write about what they know about the missing gun. What is so scary is that Iman gets a family friend to do it since he is an interrogator and Iman doesn't want his superiors to know he has lost the gun. The way this family friend uses information he would've only got about the girls through their friendship together to manipulate them in the interrogation is chilling, and worse is the fact that he has no qualms about going there with people he calls his friends.

Watching “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” I was struck by how it really felt like a “big” movie, with a decent budget. Not only did the cinematography give the film a prestige feel to it, it also has a car chase and an extended action scene towards the end. I bring this up because Mohammad Rasoulof shot the film in secret, and I wonder how that was possible with the kind of scenes he had to shoot for the film. The fact that I am sure that he is well known by the state (due to his past films), and due to the critical nature of the regime in his films, you would think that he would be constantly watched. Anyway, if you are not impressed by the film itself, you have to respect Rasoulof's courage in making the film. Not only that, but as I mentioned at the start of this review, in May of this year Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years of prison time for his involvement in a protest, yet was able to flee Iran to sanctuary in an undisclosed European country, before presenting “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” at the Cannes Film Festival only two weeks later. I said it before, this man has balls of steel.

Overall, Mohammad Rasoulof has created another angry indictment of Iran's current regime with “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”. It is an important film, highlighting the fight for women's rights in Iran while at the same time condemning the techniques used by the state in an attempt to get information or even a confession. By the end of the film, the action onscreen is mostly allegorical, showing women united together as one in attempt to force change and hopefully bring down an archaic regime. I will say that it is a little long (the film runs for just shy of three hours), but it is so worth seeing and has something very significant to say. The real iPhone footage shown at the end of the women of Tehran burning their hijabs (similar to the late 60's “burn your bra” feminist movement) was very powerful, and brought into focus just how real this situation currently is.

4 Stars.