★ 7 / 10
When “Iman” (Missagh Zareh) gets a promotion at
CinemaSerf
When “Iman” (Missagh Zareh) gets a promotion at work, he hopes it will lead to his family of wife “Najmeh” (Sohelia Golestani) and daughters “Sana” (Setareh…
When “Iman” (Missagh Zareh) gets a promotion at work, he hopes it will lead to his family of wife “Najmeh” (Sohelia Golestani) and daughters “Sana” (Setareh Maleki) and “Rezvan” (Mahsa Rostami) being relocated to better accommodation so that the girls can finally have rooms of their own! He is now to be an investigator for the state, a stone’s throw from the judiciary, and an important job. He discovers quite quickly, though, that his is really little more than a rubber-stamping position for the prosecutors who are enforcing Iran’s increasingly Draconian laws. His workload is only increased by the evident volume of civil disobedience, and for his own protection he is given a gun. At home, his wife is conscious this new job will heap additional pressure on the family and that it’s more important than ever that they keep their noses clean. Their daughters are going to school and college and are experiencing the horrors inflicted on protestors at first hand. This becomes even more poignant when their friend “Sadaf” (Niousha Akhshi) is caught up with brutal consequences. With “Iman” more disconsolate about the compliant nature of his new job family life becomes strained. Then the gun goes missing. They tear their home apart but no trace. Has he left it somewhere? Has it been stolen? The shame that will be heaped upon him, not to mention the three years in jail, should he not find it. He begins to conclude that the thief must be one of his family, and so resorts to ever more extreme measures to force the culprit to own up. When that takes them all to his home village, things starts to come to an head that tests everyone’s mettle and challenges that which all of them have hitherto cherished. The drama itself is tautly paced and becomes almost visceral as the exasperation and panic sets in amongst parents who realise that nothing is now as it was. It’s also supported by some fairly ghastly UGC from mobile phones depicting the actions of the police as they clamp down on the women who are rebelling against the restrictiveness of what they see as an ever more oppressive theocracy that reduces them to positions of little better than slavery. The plot isn’t without it’s holes, and I found the denouement all a little bit unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, not least what auteur Mohammad Rasoulof allows the character of “Iman” to become, but it’s still a compelling critique of how even the most loving of relationships can come undone when pressure, hatred, fear and mistrust are allowed unfettered into an home that’s embedded within the infrastructure of a corrupt and savagely dogmatic regime.
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★ 7 / 10
A plea for freedom
matlabaraque
The seed of the sacred fig is the first relevant, powerful film about the Iranian rebelion that took place in 2022. The Woman, Life, Freedom's movement was…
The seed of the sacred fig is the first relevant, powerful film about the Iranian rebelion that took place in 2022. The Woman, Life, Freedom's movement was born right after the arrest and death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a student that did nothing but remove her veil. The director takes us down to a family of an Iranian judge (working for the State and the Mollah 's regime) who is about to receive a promotion that is supposed to change his life right at the moment the 2022 revolution starts. We spectators somehow live this key period of Iran through the eyes of this middle class family which is about to upgrade its living conditions. We are emerged in their every day life until the gun of the father (the judge) disapears or gets stolen inside their home.The film features a fantastic script, wonderful actors and images of an unknown Iran. You can see Iran like we can rarely see it, with its modernity, its rich history and ancient monuments, its poverty as well as its drawbacks. Like in many Iranian films, the spectator is plunged into complex situations with ethical questions which oblige to choose between moral, personal values and loyalty to the regime: Shall I wear this veil or another (less provokative one) ? Should I go the university despite of the strikes ? Shoulld I ask a favor to my neighbor and take the risk of revealing my family's problems? The ethical questions are everywehre, and they are direct consequences of the heavy oppressive regime that has ruled Iran for now decades. All these questions are faced with dignity and sense of duty by the characters , with sometimes even loyalty towards a regime who could not care less about its people. Through these situations are revealed the lack of freedom, the oprression over women, the complicity of those who take profit of this regime and of course the brutality of a regime condemned to sacrifice its own people in order to survive.The latter will be perfectly depicted through the fate of the father willing to do his job respectfully but obliged to corrupt himself and sacrifice his people in order to survive to this revolution no matter how painful it is.I particularly enjoyed the insight into the Iranian middle class. Being able to see and imagine what is an every day life for women in Iran is difficult to figure from the Western World. The more the film lenghts the better it gets as you can clearly see the impasse into which the country has plunged, and with it its inhabitants (and in this case this family) condemned to find a guilty among them.Little by little, we can spot the seeds of discord germinating in this family, into the society, among students, and throughout the world thanks to social networks. That's the other revelation of this film. Social network is the key; that's the tool through which the song Baraye resonates, as well as images of police violence are spread, proofs of the oppression are accumulated, they are the hopes of Iran. The regime can no longer hide behind outrageous lies, the seeds of rebellion are now spread everywhere and the complice of the regime can no longer hide.A promising outcry and a promising motto for the future Iranian society: Woman, Life, Freedom that we hope, will eventually change Iran for good.
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★ 8 / 10
"I won't sit"
TheVictoriousV
There are still places on this Earth where women risk death for committing the irremissible crime of bareheadedness; of not wearing enough fabric to God's…
There are still places on this Earth where women risk death for committing the irremissible crime of bareheadedness; of not wearing enough fabric to God's supposed liking. Such was the case of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian woman who died in the hospital (from "unrelated causes", as the sorts of people we see in this film would try to tell us -- and themselves) after being arrested for not wearing her hijab in public, escalating the ongoing Girls of Enghelab protests to the point of major unrest that lasted from September of 2022 and all the way into the spring of 2023.In The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof (the Iranian filmmaker who has often found himself at odds with his government and currently resides in exile in Germany), the events are seen from the perspective of the family of an investigating judge in Tehran. Throughout the film, real TikTok and Instagram videos of the bedlam are interwoven with the narrative. The unrest is reflected in this family; the daughters question the authorities and traditions that their parents protect for little reason other than tradition itself -- and yes, a point of violence is reached.This is a tense, atmospheric, moving film. I don't wish to reveal too much about it, but I will say this: if this film becomes as big and impactful as it ought to be, its recurring phrase "I won't sit" may get co-opted by many equal rights/freedom movements to come.Many Oscar opinion-havers this season have quipped, "I don't care who wins; I just need Emilia Pérez to lose". This concerns all categories that it's (somehow) nominated within, including Best International Feature Film. I guess I don't care who wins either. But it should be The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
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oh my god....we are in 2025 and persian/Farsi has 3000years history and noone except afew cant tell WHAT IS PERSIAN AND WHAT IS ARABIC!!!