Soheila Golestani, from left, Mahsa Rostami, and Setareh Maleki in a scene from The Seed of the Sacred Fig.The Associated Press
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
Starring Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh and Mahsa Rostami
Classification N/A; 168 minutes
Opens in select theatres Jan. 10
Critic’s Pick
For as much as The Seed of the Sacred Fig is driven by the physical act of resistance, it is deferential to those caught in the role of oppressor. The film, written and directed in secret by Mohammad Rasoulof, and its source inspiration are links in a very long chain, reaching back to the birth of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when government censorship reverberated through the people of Iran and cinema itself.
Set in Tehran, the story is, in this way, a tale of fathers, mothers, friends, and daughters – how they choose to live, often under the lure of defiance or conformity: Iman, your soon-to-be-judge and symbol of said oppression; the mother, the ever-diplomatic go-between; and their daughters, independence personified.
A missing gun sends Iman (Missagh Zareh) into a paranoid panic that sets him against his children, until nothing going on around them is permitted to be larger than the family strain at this moment – not even the footage of real-world protests, which serve to destabilize this fiction, keeping it from being self-contained. A long-lasting clash between tradition and progress is rescaled for a dinnertime dynamic that feels familiar.
It plays out like that rare piece of art capable of capturing the individual agency inherent in both resistance and compliance. An entire history of oppression isn’t needed here – that is beyond the scope of any one film and a waste of this one.
Of course, viewers know the beats of what subjugation looks like well enough to cite some graphic version of it on film. But the prickly consequences that come with aiding and embedding power are hard things to convey in ways that feel lived in. That Rasoulof lands a response to this query – one equally informed by the fact that he, along with his Iranian cast, are currently in exile for challenging such power – is the true beauty of The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
Special to The Globe and Mail
