Cinema is a dangerous business in Iran. Filmmakers who dare expose the engulfing control of the Islamic republic’s state repression are often crushed by the very evil they hope to capture. Travel bans, passport seizures, lengthy prison sentences and intimidation become part and parcel of the job. The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof’s secret picture about a criminal investigator whose careerist motives, state fanaticism and missing gun drive an iron wedge between him and his young daughters – should be a permanent reminder of the risks Iranian filmmakers take for their art. This is yet more essential viewing from Leeds International Film Festival.
In September 2022, tired and harried protesters took to the streets of Tehran under the banner of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, burning their headdresses as a symbol of disgust towards a state that had allowed 22-year-old Mahsa Amini to die in police custody. Amini was another victim of the Iranian Revolutionary Court’s Hijab and Chastity restrictions, theocratic laws recently strengthened by the state’s new power to subject women who breach the dress codes to ’treatment clinics’.
But Rasoulof could do nothing but respect his compatriots’ resolve from the isolation of his cell: the director, along with fellow filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, was already serving a year-long prison sentence. His crime? Imploring security services to lay down their weapons during the deadly Abadan protests earlier that year.
The horrors of such violent state repression would in fact mutate into one of the bloodiest moments in Iran’s recent history, with security services bringing about the death of over 100 protesters in a single day on September 30th, known today as ’Bloody Friday’. Those who survived the ball bearings passed off as non-lethal rounds – protesters were often shot in the neck, stomach and genitals, but particularly the eyes, as the UN’s Fact Finding Mission Chair reports – would bear the ’dissidents’ mark for life.
A sympathetic jailer
It was this nightmarish reality that Rasoulof would enter as a free man, in February 2023, while armed forces were still imprisoning, torturing and executing those deemed part of an international conspiracy to undermine national security. Those living with whatever freedoms they could salvage must have wondered if the harbingers of state violence have a conscience.
After a clandestine conversation with a sympathetic jailer, Rasoulof knew the answer: the guard, suicidal at the prospect of enforcing more cruelty on others, could not bear tell his family what he does for a living. One need not squint to see how this harrowing and enlightening encounter would form the basis for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof’s study of a family torn apart by their father’s unthinkable, state-ordered actions.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig germinates
Iman – played with haunted vacancy by Missagh Zareh – had thought himself a just lawman, always fair in his 20 years as an ’expert’. But when promoted as an investigating judge, an essential stepping stone to the bench of the revolutionary court, the father of two finds himself tipping the scales of justice at the state’s will. Hundreds of death warrants begin to cross Iman’s desk, though his workload is easier than ever: things work differently here; don’t ask questions; just sign.
Yes, the times are a-changin’. Not just for Iman, who is learning the true weight of Azrael’s scythe. But also Najmeh, the materialist wife living in secret fear of her husband’s wrath, not merely for herself but their two children, Sana and Zervan (Mahsa Rostami), whose feminist views, longing for nail polish and educated friends are viewed as an imminent threat to the family’s survival.
It is here the seed of the fig that can engulf entire trees begins to germinate. Through Rasoulof’s patient and calculated authorship, we see Iman’s fanatical devotion calcify into an unmovable object, with the family’s civil liberties being rolled back inch by inch: friends are banned from coming over; neighbours are to be treated with suspicion; ’leaks’ must be stopped at all costs. There’s a horror film kineticism that stalks the hallways of the tiny apartment, a feeling some unseen enemy must be evaded, best observed through Najmeh’s attempts to hide their daughter’s friend from Iman’s paranoid gaze.
The chants penetrate the walls
To his family, Iman has become a feared supreme leader of the household, a god among men whose word is final and whose presence is rare. The service pistol the father foolishly hides in a drawer acts as a physical testament to his divine right – although it will be stolen in a sudden, dizzying coup de théâtre. But when images of bloodied protesters and terrorising security forces are emblazoned on the daughters’ phones, real footage taken from the Amini demonstrations, Iman watches his regime begin to wobble.
Dissident slogans transcend screens and penetrate the walls; residents from the same apartment block chant “death to theocracy”; women in public without hijabs become an increasingly visible presence.
But it is at the dinner table – a sacrosanct space for the father’s patriarchal authority, when Iman denigrates the protesters as “sluts who want to walk naked in the street” – where we see judges too aren’t immune from the power of dissenting voices. Zervan, with gladiatorial furor, beats away talk of enemy plots, conspiracy theories and misogyny to ask her father something simple and poignant: “A girl my age was killed for her hijab. Why?” If Rostami’s anger feels lived-in and real, I would bet the farm it is.
Cinema or secret military operation?
Cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei achieves in the film’s alleyways and bustling urban scenes a near-tangible paranoia that is also reflective of the incredibly dangerous risks undertaken by the cast and crew.
Rasoulof, who had already served a prison term for shooting without a permit, knew before making his latest picture it would resemble a covert military operation rather than a film production. And that’s exactly what it became: 70 days of exhausting shoots; small groups operating with very limited resources; no cellphones; anxieties running through the roof. Even the director himself would not be present when the clapperboard hit: liaisons between tech, design and cast members were essential in communicating the film’s intended image. The threat to life and liberty was always lurking in the shadows.
Final Thoughts
And now, just over six months after the film was announced as a contender at Cannes, most of those who worked on it are experiencing legal reprisals. Both Rostami and her on-screen sister, Saterah Maleki, have left the country in fear of state retribution, and are joined by Rasoulof, who fled to Germany shortly after receiving a draconian eight year sentence and flogging in May this year.
So as Rasoulof vows to return to Iran and accept his persecution, let us appreciate the price of admission the director and his peers pay for the sake of free expression in an art form we are lucky enough to take for granted. The Seed of the Sacred Fig will live on as a testament to their sacrifice.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
