A review of the 2024 Iranian film “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig”
This film, written, co-produced and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, is remarkable, both for how it was shot and for what it tells us about the contemporary state of Iran. The work was filmed in Iran in secret and then smuggled to Germany for editing and post-production. It was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize.
Shortly before it was screened, the director was sentenced to eight years in prison as well as flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property, but Rasoulof and some cast and crew members managed to flee to Europe in time to attend the festival but now remain in exile.
The film tells the fictional, but all too real, story of Iman (Missagh Zareh), a devout and honest lawyer, who lives with his wife, Najmeh, and their two daughters, Rezvan and Sana. He has recently been appointed as an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran and immediately he is required to betray his principles and enslave himself to the regime.
When his newly-provided gun goes missing, he suspects each member of his family and becomes ever-more paranoid and repressive, like the regime itself.
It is a long film (168 minutes), but doesn’t feel its length, because the pace and the tension are ever-increasing, and real images of the 2022–2023 protests in Iran make the narrative convincing and compelling.
The obscure title – explained in the opening moments of the film – refers to a species of fig that spreads by “wrapping itself around another tree and eventually strangling it”. This can clearly be seen as a metaphor for the theocratic regime in Iran.