The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Persian: دانه*ی انجیر معابد, romanized: Dane ye Anjir e Maabed; French: Les Graines du figuier sauvage; German: Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums)
MOHAMMAD RASOULOF: THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (2024) - New York Film Festival The undoing of an Iranian family Rasoulof begins wonderfully with a family, whose conflicts reflect neatly enough the turmoil of the brutal Iranian theocratic regime at a real recent moment when the young people are ready to risk evrything to revolt against it, for a while anyway. The father, Iman (Missagh Zareh) is on the way to becoming a judge. His wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), the most interesting character because she changes, is religious, like her husband (who's seen praying at home several times), and very loyal to the machine of the regime in which he is a part as a lawyer who is working his way up to the Revolutionary Court. He becomes an interrogator, and the next step is to be a judge.
Their two young daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) harbor the critical ideas of Iranian youth, and this causes them to rescue a classmate, Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), who has been caught in a demonstration and gotten buckshot in the face. Gradually we see the stresses grow, and production values are excellent all down tthe line, with particularly striking use of Iranian music. The torments and conflicts of living under the Iranian regime have never been so closely wedded to the day to day experiences of a family.
Unfortunately, Rasoulof isn't able to work within these limits and instead turns the movie into a mystery and then a thriller, and then almost a series of conceptual games at a historic ruin Iman takes the family to after he has been doxed by anti-regime forces and they are in danger. Something that seemed very real, while it may remain engrossing in its way, seems to go haywire, starting with the theatrical device of a missing pistol.
Nonetheless, students of the Iranian situation and of Iranian film will have to see
The Seed of the Sacred Fig. And a lot of it is a pleasure to look at and listen to. The often flat closeup cinematography is subtly striking. There is a scene where tending a bloody wound feels like a sacred rite. The actresses seem very real. The father becomes a bit shrill later on, but he's powerful in the more successful first half. Mohammad Rasoulof fled his home country to avoid an eight-year prison sentence, and so he is another one of the major Iranian filmmakers, with Asghar Farhadi, Jaafar Panahi and the late Abbas Kiarastomi who have memorably depicted their country without being able to be there or, if there, to move about freely.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig/دانهی انجیر معابد, 168 mins., debuted May 24, 2024 at Cannes (Special Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Award), showing at numerous other international festivals including Sydney, Locarno, Melbourne, Telluride, Torontok and the NYFF, where it was screened for this review.
Metacritic rating (15 reviews): 84%. A NEON release.
FAQ
Search
Login
