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New York Film Festival: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) Review

Mohammad Rasoulof made a big splash at Cannes with this latest offering, having to sneak out of Iran and travel by road for almost a month non-stop before arriving at the French festival’s 77th celebration where he would be awarded a Special Award. Germany has even chosen it as their Best International Feature Film entry at the 97th Academy Awards. It follows a judge trying to decide which member of his family stole his gun as anti-hijab protests break out all around the country. Rasoulof made great use of archival footage, tender performances and wonderful editing to give one of the most searing explorations of patriarchy to be caught on camera this decade, perhaps this century. As we watch this power-dazed fool desperately try and cling to the few morsels of power he’s been allotted, viewers slowly start to understand the picture being painted: how nothing we could possibly do can save a system that was never meant to protect us—we shouldn’t even be so eager to save that system. Sometimes, things have to come to a head. Sometimes, people have to take sides.

The script here is really something to behold. Rasoulof isn’t afraid to take his time getting to know the characters, allowing us to understand their relationship dynamics and how they interact. This great pacing increases the stakes because by the time things start to spiral out of control we can’t help but worry for Rezvan and Sana, having been made to feel so close to the tapestry of their daily lives. I also greatly appreciate the feeling of sitting with my popcorn having absolutely no idea what’s going to come next. Few films capture that feeling nowadays, but this one does it with aplomb. The plot constantly veered away from where I was expecting it to go, keeping me engaged and excited about what I was watching. The sheer amount of tension this film holds is enough to make someone implode, and I think a lot of that comes from the sound design.

         Silence is one of the few tools that hasn’t been green-screened into irrelevance, and after seeing this movie I’m damn glad about that. What I appreciate so much about the way silence operates in this film, aside from it existing to begin with, is how dynamically its employed. It can be a manner of ratcheting up the tension and causing viewers to lean a bit forward in their seats with anticipation, but it can also add a layer of tender emotionality to the frame depending on how it’s used. Too often are we jammed into a movie seat with nonstop stimulation pumped into our eyes and ears and mouths; it was a nice change of pace to sit in a film that wasn’t afraid to embrace silence, to have us sit with these characters and really get to explore their inner workings. I think that willingness to allow audiences to discover the worlds you create is what separates good movies from movies that haunt you for weeks after you see them. Even the editing seemed to reflect this kind of eager stillness.

         Much like quiet, the long shot was used for a variety of things here. Over the course of a single shot, we can see someone’s entire political and familial belief system start to crumble. Handheld camerawork adds a kind of subjective quality to these moments, making audiences feel as close to these characters’ perspectives as possible. Along with the long shot usage, there are a lot of cuts that are simply hilarious. For a film as intense and grim as this one, it’s incredible how much room for levity there is. Be it the characters trying to understand each other or the sheer absurdity of the patriarchal surveillance state, you’re guaranteed to laugh more than you expect here in large part due to the editing, but also thanks to the acting.  

         Everyone was so embodied and committed to their role that it hardly felt as if anyone was ‘acting’ in this movie. I know that sounds pretentious, but from the small fluctuations in their facial expressions to a casual flick of the hand, I feel like these tiny details accumulate to create a person who feels lived-in and organic, whole. That’s what every single one of these people feels like. Their problems are valid and legitimate, and though we might not agree we would still be able to understand everyone’s point of view, how what they’re going through led them to make certain choices. That kind of moral ambiguity is really fun to explore from an artistic side, and Rasoulof also seemed to really enjoy making these characters and situations as complex as possible to create the most thought-provoking viewing experience you can hope to have this year. It’s also beautiful to look at.


         Particularly toward the end, when the film tonally starts to shift away from a family drama and toward an almost allegorical fable with shades of surrealist absurdity, cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei leans into the wide desert vistas of West Asia. This emphasizes the dreamlike quality of this third act, again making it feel like anything could happen at any time. We get a sense of lawlessness here, as though the fickle shackles of patriarchal conditioning have finally shattered and the women of Iman’s house break into a full-on revolt. That being said, this isn’t exactly a perfect film.

         There’s one scene where Iman tries to warn Rezvan about being tricked by anti-Iranian propaganda, encouraging her to be vigilant against the enemy, and she asks “What enemy? There is no enemy, father, just people trying to better their lives.” In a rage, Iman chooses to leave the table rather than continue the debate. I felt like this scene was emblematic of my issue with the movie as a whole: for a film that is so integrally shaped by politics, it really tries its hardest to be apolitical. Sure, there are some vague nods toward the hijab protests, but we never really hear from either side, and larger themes of sexism and gender roles are reduced to being the mere byproducts of interpersonal interactions rather than systemic machinations at work. This is potentially dangerous, because it can be a kind of cover for laundering the system into a palatable mush and also creates a kind of obfuscation that is easily taken advantage of by Western governments who want to topple Iran for political or oil-related reasons. Something about having a film depict people fighting for an obscure, never-specified “freedom and peace” as they’re brutally repressed feels like the kind of black and white that real life never is, which prevents it from having the kind of gravity it could have if Rasoulof would stop shying away from putting these hard conversations into the fabric of the film itself.

         Overall, I found this to be one of my favorite films this year. It’s so poetic in its pacing, its scope somehow wildly expansive while also bracingly intimate. It made me think a lot about the lies we tell ourselves daily, how those lies are ultimately us choosing to participate in a broken system of corruption, alienation and death. But maybe it’s not too late. Like the women in the film, maybe there’s still time for us to band together, maybe there’s still time to burn it all to the ground, build something new atop the ashes.

 

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