Starring: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki
Distributor: Sharmill Films
Runtime: 168 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2025
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This sub-titled Persian political drama tells of protests in Iran arising from the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest and detention by Iran’s morality police.
In a devout family, a lawyer, Iman (Zareh), lives with his wife, Najmeh (Golestani) and their two daughters, Rezvan (Rostami) and Sana (Maleki) in Tehran. He is appointed as state investigator to The Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, and as part of his work is expected to approve judgments that come before him without being able to assess evidence for them, and the government issues him with a handgun to protect himself and his family. He is overcome with doubt and mistrust when he is asked to sign a growing number of death sentences each day. After being issued with the gun, it goes missing from his house.
Iman tells his daughters to stay away from their revolutionary friends, and takes his family to a childhood home in the mountains. There, he interrogates his family, to find who is hiding his gun. Iman pathologically confronts both his wife and daughters. The gun reappears, tragedy strikes, and the film concludes by returning viewers to street protests continuing in Tehran.
Writer-director Rasoulof and members of his cast were heavily criticised by the Iranian authorities for making the movie, and Rasoulof refused to withdraw his movie from competition. At Cannes in 2025, the film won the Prize of the ‘Ecumenical Jury’, took out the festival’s Special Jury Prize, and garnered a host of awards from countries around the world. The title of the movie refers to a species of fig that spreads itself by wrapping itself around another tree, and strangling it, leaving it to stand on its own. The fig is presented as a symbol of the theocratic regime in Iran, and the film graphically depicts protest demonstrations and the violent crackdown on them by Iranian authorities. Rasoulof fled Iran to avoid imprisonment for eight years, a flogging, and confiscation of his property.
The film is an incredibly powerful tale of paranoia and resistance. It honours bravery and explores its themes in thriller mode both at a government level, and within the family setting. Family tensions and mistrust express the paranoia engendered by an oppressive government regime, and both family and State indicate similarly corrosive effects that express common suspicion.
Iman sets his family rules that mirror the restrictions of the government that employs him, and he and his family share common confusions. Family conflict further depicts cultural, patriarchal rifts, as well as the impact of oppressive control. Golestani excels as Iman’s dutiful wife.
This is an extraordinary film that is an impassioned outcry against oppression. It is remarkably directed, acted and photographed, and richly deserves the accolades that it has received.
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