As we approach the midpoint of The Seed of the Sacred Fig, one of the characters, an Islamic revolutionary called Iman (Missagh Zareh) seems to be losing focus, if his name is anything to go by, it means ‘faith’ as opposed to being practical. He has suppressed his family’s protest as they have refused to disengage with the matter at hand- they have asserted they are not fully aware of the current location of the weapon that is now missing and my family also doubts, appears in the only option available at that instant: say nothing. His head spins with the number of Woman Life Freedom protests that have infiltrated his courtroom and the numerous death warrants that were simply sent over to him for consent without him being able to intervene. And his daughters, who he had designedly cultivated to be devout Muslims, are now starting to convert into sympathizers of these women’s protests where they protested the removal of headscarves. No matter how deep these interactions occurred, these events were twinning in his mind, so much so that he almost believed he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, cue the moment he crossed a signal only to believe he saw his eldest daughter with no headscarf, makeup, and tattoos that featured at the rear view of the car that was in the lane adjacent to him. She confronted him, an imagery he had once lived in fear of, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is arguably, a political thriller, horror, and even a reverent to such a feeling. The motivation for the contribution of Iranian women and girls is something else altogether.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig was filmed covertly in Iran and completed in Germany, where the filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof migrated to serve a reduced sentence for critiquing the regime in his films. (Rasoulof has served two prison sentences, once for filming without permission and again for ‘anti-government propaganda’.) The film is set in a specific time and space, it is Tehran in the fall of 2022, after Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl died in the country’s religious police custody. According to reports, Amini was detained in Iran for supposedly not wearing the hijab properly, and it was said she suffered a heart attack at a police station. To the multitudes who hit the streets and screamed ‘Zan, Zendegi, Azadi’ Persian for ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ and who understand the extent to which the regime has gone to terrorize women for so-called “moral policing”, the storyline did not make sense. The nearly three-hour-long, exquisitely tense The Seed of the Sacred Fig looks at the revolution through the eyes of very young women who started it and have been silenced for doing so. (There are some global pockets of defiance, like this college student, who recently participated in an anti-hijab movement and disrobed on campus.)
The film begins as a family and occupational conflict saga.
As a recently appointed judge in the Iranian tribunal that cops with violations against the State, Iman’s new job foremost being a high-profile one, suggests that his family will be relocating to a safer neighborhood, and more spacious apartment. This shift, according to his spouse Najmeh (played by Soheila Golestani who was imprisoned during the riots and still cannot leave Iran) is a wonderful time to explain to their two daughters, early-20 whose name is Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and teenage Sana (Setareh Maleki) how Iman earns the living and how his new job also comes with other responsibilities that will impact them as well. They shall have to be “irreproachable”, Najmeh states that avoid questionable selfies such as not posting any on social media, limiting herself to no dyed hair, or nail polish, waxing off eyebrows, or making any bare minimum alliances with people like Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), a classmate of Rezvan whom Najmeh finds ungrateful in terms of influence. With Sadaf getting involved in the protests and rioting, there arises friction between the couples and their daughters.
According to Najmeh, she and her husband, Iman, have seen how their daughters have begun reverting to West1 Instagram videos of the protests, while simultaneously getting bored with the explanations that thugs are fleeing the state media. Iman, on the other hand, however, can’t seem to comprehend how his daughters peel off from their parents’ beliefs and do whatever pleases them. The only thing that seems to frighten Iman to lose guards his employers provided to him for personal security. At this point, The Seed of the Sacred Fig becomes a metaphor for his single-minded delusion and portrays his own opinion on the methods of the Grand Inquisition which he employs in his work. Iman could not help putting the word of his social standing off tho. He informs his colleagues Najmeh, Rezvan, and Sana that the purpose is to determine if they are aware of the whereabouts of the gun they want to forget about. His only consolation is that he benefits from his imagination and his ideology or two starts colluding. To do away with the surreal feeling of their responses especially by slike when he confiscates their penetrates his sophistication more so when he is shivering through the pain of disbelief at how they disobeyed him instead of agreeing Iman turns his sights to their phones.
The laws and the state bear an enormous weight for Rasoulof in his films, laws are obeyed more as a defense. In his last film, There Is No Evil, he peered into his minutiae by exposing what the men who were in charge of carrying death sentences had to go through. According to Rasoulof, while he was in prison in 2022, the men guarding him kept watching the film with him, stressing how much they could relate to its content. The Seed of the Sacred Fig offers its viewers little empathy for its male surrogates who are almost from the government and follow orders whether it is torturing a woman or giving clearance for a killing spree.
Alternatively, it suggests that tradition and patriarchy emerge as two related cancers that draw strength from their subjects (like the Ficus religiosa invasive weed the film is named after). Thanks in part to actual protest footage filmed by Woman, Life, Freedom participants, the film makes the attention to the views of young women in the Country rather thorough, for instance: cosmetics and a little hair exposed do not equate to lacking faith, female lone friendships are not a threat, rulers and their subjects should be able to talk about their government without someone getting hurt. It simmers in a way that no celebrity quote or hair-cutting video, however nobly intending, has ever been able to do.
Rasoulof has discussed the intention of making his movies evolve towards less allegorical imagery, revealing a preference to describe events through his life’s experiences such as conflict, oppression, or totalitarianism in a straightforward way with no embellishment of contradiction. In this case, Rezvan and Sana do not hide their desire to be comfortable in their skins, both young actresses are tremendous but stand out during the clashes with their parents. She does note, however, how amusing it is when Iman undercut’s her authority with Rezvan by instructing her to shut up so what the others think about her isn’t important at all. Toward the end of the film, when cars full of armed policemen violently assault people on the streets, history repeats itself when Rezvan infamously orders her son to throw violent policemen off him. Meanwhile, in one of the also pivotal scenes she should consider her hair an asset, as everyone around her is sympathetic toward her. Iman. Who controls their family, has a very different perspective on things, her aims, however, were to take full control, in group fights, it’s impossible not to lose, and bad positioning has its consequences. Pivotal scenes develop concepts and ideas outlining why the film has received such acclaim.
Both times when Rasoulof seems to capture effect, his attention focuses on Najmeh and her bloodied hand which she washed down a sink, or placing the camera inside the interrogating cell where a blindfolded Sana is sitting. Probably due to its realism, The Seed of the Sacred Fig has its defining features that would make these moments more than irrelevant distractions, in fact considering the emotional qualities brought out during the scenes they are perfect complements.
Perhaps that element of absurdity whereby Iman’s office relates in any way to revolution has a Selfie of Qasem Soleimani and other torn papers that hold pictures of blindfolded seated men shaped as tortured prisoners, who seem dead until Iman along with Ghaderi (Reza Akhlaghirad) pass beside them does add a twist. The duo of Iman and Ghaderi are still emotionless and do not even bother turning around to glance at the sad faces of the captivated men and the international drama they seem to be subservient to. The Raise Plants advocate’s point of view is, however, that these men’s apathy is not simply an act of zeal towards self-interest, rather it should bring out the lowest point for them.
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