PremiumThe Seed Of The Sacred Fig Review: It's beyond being a movie, it's a document of a lived dystopia
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig Review: Mohammad Rasoulof's soul piercing tale of women fighting to lift a veil by sacrificing their lives is a reminder of the evil many of us have made peace with.
Last Updated: 10.30 AM, Jan 22, 2025
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig Story: Iman (Misagh Zare), an inspector judge (not the judge) in Tehran, lives with his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). Inspectors in this country are goons hired to bring order and keep women in check. Iman’s job is to arrest student protestors of his daughters’ age and interrogate them while signing their death sentences if they are found guilty. But when the rebellion reaches home and his gun goes missing, he suspects his daughters and wife. The family is broken, and so is the dam that's been filled with oppression and no outlet for years.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig Review:
How do you define an almost three-hour-long footage made by a man who has spent months in prison for practicing his voice in a country where he is right now a wanted ‘fugitive’? There is no way this is a mere movie where a man is talking about the distress in the society he is living/lived in. It is a document about the agony of his homeland, where women have fought a battle to be able to take the veil off their heads, and some even lost their lives in order to achieve that. When cinema travels beyond being just a story and tells you about the sufferings humans in another part of the world are going through to have the basic right to live and live as they want to, it is the cinema that matters and should be echoed in every corner of the world. Mohammad Rasoulof is doing ‘God’s work.’
Sana, played by a courageous Setareh Maleki in a key scene, asks her God-fearing patriotic father, Iman, “Why are you interfering in our relationship with God?" exactly an hour after her father has said, "Whoever confronts God does it at their own risk.” A conflict brave Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been exploring through his cinema and life throughout his career. The Seed Of A Sacred Fig is a film that breathes under the clutches of religion and its self-proclaimed protectors until it finds its voice and rebels to bloom into the fruit that is not just sweet but also beautiful. The Jina Revolution broke after Jina Mahsa Amini was arrested and allegedly beaten to death for wearing an improper hijab. The film is inspired by how Mohammad saw it all while he was serving punishment in prison.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig opens with a man praying at a mosque surrounded by a lifeless landscape that must have been beautiful someday but is now a broken relic of a much better time. The landscape shifts to Tehran, which, while modern, is living the same life as that dead landscape where the praying God-fearing man happens to be an inspector, a job no one likes and one that requires him to be discreet about it. In a way, he is working for the regime, and he and his subordinates are the regime.
But what happens when a man who is against women practicing voice notices his daughters wanting to be rebellious souls and go against the system he has protected for two decades of his existence? Distress. Also written by Mohammad Rasoulof, the movie takes its own time to set the conflict. The logline you read online begins after a good 90 minutes.
Those 90 minutes where the main conflict hasn't arrived are a part of the alarm Mohammad Rasoulof wants to ring for the world. It is him wanting your attention as young women fight for their rights and right to live. His attempt is not to wake the young corps up, the ones that should have already woken up. He wants to wake the ones who have conditioned themselves with this oppression and wear the blinders the men (read self-proclaimed protectors of religion) have made them wear. In Najmeh, he shapes a woman who feels being at the service of her husband is all she is supposed to do. Even a strand of hair needs to obey his rule. But when a young girl with a buckshot in her eye and a destroyed face is in her lap, something in her shifts as she takes out the filings of bullets. This moment makes her think about the two young women in her house whom she is training to be fragments of her.
It is at this realization where Mohammad Rasoulof unleashes the real story of his film. Iman, who feels women need him to anchor their lives, is now doubting the same women he once trusted the most because they lived in his fear. He is almost a ghost in their lives who comes at night and leaves in the morning. But the day he decides to stay, he shapes a nightmare. The digicam that the girls, in a scene, are watching fond memories on, becomes the investigation recorder in the next moment for the father who is interrogating the three for his missing gun. There is so much in this dynamic where Iman is never the hero. It is Najmeh who is having a complete transformation while being afraid till the point she calls the man she worshipped like God a devil. Of course, there is protest unrest and hell for women outdoors, but what about the one men are creating for them indoors?
Mohammad Rasoulof is in complete control of this almost three-hour film that is a slow-burning documentary about our times. No one's allowed to have a voice but the dictators who have convinced a large number of people that they are supposed to be the ones who are purifying the society. The religion changes, but the story remains the same in so many parts of the world. We all are at different stages of succumbing to that idea, and there are rebellions to that too. Mohammad keeps reminding you that the three-hour story is not a fictional tale, but a reality an entire country has lived and somewhere continues to live.
His cinema is beyond being just a film; it is an alarm for you, me, and all of us to wake up and smell the tea before it's too late. The complete cast of the film is spectacular, especially Soheila Golestani and Mahsa Rostam, who play Najmeh and Rezvan respectively. While Soheila has a complete transformation arc and she lives it so well and movingly, Mahsa lives a silent rebellion with momentary outbursts, and they hit the right chords. The Seed Of The Sacred Fig metaphor comes alive so well if you notice that every dot connects and all of it will leave you numb at least for some time. The movie must resonate and should be remembered and viewed for a long time only to make many realize the privilege and support the cause to keep our freedom intact.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig Final Verdict:
Mohammad Rasoulof wants the condition to wake up and join the young and ask for what is theirs, freedom. This is not a war cry; this is more of a document of our times that needs to be consumed and not forgotten. Blood was spilled, and a rebellion was led, only for women to take off their veils.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig will be released in India on January 24, 2025. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.