‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Mohammad Rasoulof’s Scathing Indictment of Iran’s Lack of Justice System | TIFF

The ficus religiosa envelops its tendrils around another tree. That is how this species of figs begins its growth. It proceeds to weave its tendrils around and around and around until it appears that it has rendered the tree incapable of escaping. The sacred fig then slowly strangles the tree to death and spreads its seeds.

The sacred fig is an unsubtle metaphor for theocracy and an unsubtle title for Mohammad Rasoulof’s towering cinematic achievement. It’s apt for a film that, for better and for worse, eschews subtlety in favor of just saying what it wants to say. For the better in that it is an unapologetic piece of political art, bookending its fictional narrative with real footage from the protests in Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman, in Tehran police custody on September 16, 2022. For the worse in that it sometimes takes the most literal approach and undercuts the tension it otherwise so expertly builds.

And the tension is built beautifully. For all of its on-the-nose approaches (the gun and the film’s climactic sequence are particularly guilty of this), The Seed of the Sacred Fig is an finely crafted tale of a powder keg just waiting to combust into smithereens. The audience knows it – the footage of real-life protests make it extremely clear that the promotion Iman (Missagh Zareh) has received is going to be anything but a boon for the family. They are expecting material gains, such as a three-bedroom apartment in a building exclusively occupied by government workers and their families. But instead the crushing reality of what Iman’s job means in its execution unravels the entire family spectacularly.

It’s not that Iman doesn’t know the reality of what the justice system looks like in Iran. He’s bought into what the system tells everyone: that it simply exists to enforce the will of God as written down. But there was always a veil between him and let’s say, signing an execution warrant simply because the prosecutor wants him to. Or signing them because they’ve arrested too many protesters and, well, the system demands efficiency, ruthless efficiency. So he signs them. He feels bad at the beginning, but he signs them. Again and again.

His wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) supports him, citing the stress of his position, the responsibilities on his shoulders, of how he was a better father to their two daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) than her own father was to her. But the rising toll of the protests breaks down any semblance of trust and faith between Iman and the women of his family as his true self, cracking down on protestors fighting for a better future, turns homeward.

Rasoulof’s direction, Pooyan Aghababaei’s cinematography, and Andrew Bird’s kinetic energy all come together in some truly riveting sequences – a car chase in the Iranian desert and the hush whispers of a woman recording an instance of police brutality are particular standouts. But I would be remiss to not make a note of something the film serves as a warning against because while it’s specifically an indictment against the regime currently in power in Iran, its impact deserves to be understood on a broader scale. 

There were moments in my screening where the audience’s laughter struck me as being incongruous with what was happening on screen. It’s similar to the audience’s reaction when I saw the excellent Iranian film Terrestrial Verses earlier this year and indeed some who saw Sacred Fig at Cannes had similar observations about the largely Western audience’s engagement with the film there. 

There is a tendency in Western audiences to observe films that depict the oppressiveness of Islamic theocracy as if it is both a distant phenomenon and a confirmation of their biases that West is indeed a synonym for freedom and progressiveness. As if somehow women, especially women of color, aren’t dying from state efforts to criminalize reproductive care. As if the military industrial complex in the form of American police forces aren’t routinely brutalizing protestors fighting for a better future here. As if somehow the ugliness of theocracy won’t raise its head here when indeed for far too many marginalized communities in the West, that ugliness has been present for quite some time.

Grade: A-

This review is from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. NEON will release The Seed of the Sacred Fig in U.S. theaters on November 27, 2024.