Rent The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)

Watchable Iranian Film Nominated for an Oscar - The Seed of the Sacred Fig review by PV

This film is well made and watchable, the latest from this writer/director. It is political with a small 'p', using the metaphor of a divided family for the state of the nation of Iran, under Islamist dictatorship since 1979. Everything is riddled with suspicion, whispers and betrayal - as is usual in dictatorships or volatile states, same in Britain in 17th century.

The acting is great too. It is all intercut with real-life footage, much from smartphones, or street protests of recent years. The creeping suspicion does strangle the family and film like the sacred fig parasite plant, as described at the start of the film.

OK so the downsides - this film like many these days is too long, some flab could be sliced off here easily. The plot becomes in the third act a B-movie thriller which reminds me of old black-and-white films really. No spoilers. I suppose it had to end somehow...

Moreover, like many films, TV dramas and claims of certain actives, men are pitted against women here, the claim made that men oppress women and are responsible for such dictatorships and oppressing women. WHAT ROT! Those who know such cultures know it is the WOMEN who rule the home, not the men, so it is the older women in many Muslim/Asian households who force girls into headscarves and burkas, and enforced FGM and forced marriage. Not the men.

Indeed, how ironic that in the UK, the feminist lobby DEFENDS girls wearing hijab/niqab/burka, and even BBC has shows promoting these. Over in Iran, brave women and girls ripping OFF the headscarves/hijab is a sign of liberation. The UK has areas in cities where those females NOT wearing hijab will get targeted by patrols enforcing these rules - and we let that happen! Tolerance of intolerance happens a lot in the UK. Well done Iranian people for being so brave!

France has a group called Ni Putes Ni Soumises made up of Muslim women fighting extremist moralising Islam and things like forcing women and girls into headscarves, and face veils, and against domestic violence,. Sadly, the UK does not. That speaks volumes. The UK should be ashamed of this, the way here the burka/headscarf is imposed, with even newsreader here in hijabs and students at colleges/schools in burkas. Just wrong. BUT this garb is imposed by women in those Muslim homes, NOT men.

I am sure things will change in Iran soon, from within, maybe a more modern Gorbachev-style politician emerging from the present structures rather than ground-up protests, or maybe a bit of both.

This film deserved its Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film (for Germany). A great watch, 4 stars

The Seed of the Sacred Fig - The Seed of the Sacred Fig review by JR

What a brave film - including illicit recordings of police brutality during protests over the murder of a girl in police custody for not wearing her hijab correctly. If I understood it correctly, it involved the steady corruption of a once honorable, compassionate and moderate man when he receives a higher office and has to condemn protesters to the death penalty. Fear for the family is palpable and the ending is very tense. We were quite shaken after viewing it. There is not much graphic violence, which is seen blurrily from a distance, but as an illustration of life under a repressive regime, it is chilling.

An insight into Iran's collective paranoia under Islamist rule - The Seed of the Sacred Fig review by Philip in Paradiso

The film takes place in modern-day Iran, under the rule of the repressive Islamist regime in power in Tehran since 1979. The story is centred on Iman, a devout Muslim and a lawyer, his wife, and their 2 daughters (one is a teenager, and the other one is in her early twenties). Iman has been appointed as an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The position comes with a higher salary and the promise of a larger apartment in due course. The situation in the country is far from peaceful, however, as nationwide political protests are taking place, involving many young people who reject the regime's authoritarian and arbitrary rule. Iman finds that his role may be far more political than he perhaps expected. The story develops from there.

This is a good film, which re-creates the atmosphere within Iran very well. We can see and feel the impact that the regime's total control over society is having on every citizen, whether they support the regime or not. Iman, as a decent, honest man, is faced with a dilemma: think first and foremost of his career, or ask himself uncomfortable ethical questions. The film analyses what it means to be working for a repressive regime, and what such a regime does to its opponents but, also, to those who choose to serve it. The clash of generations in a deeply conservative and patriarchal society - pitting Iman against his daughters, with his wife caught in the middle - is depicted in a nuanced way, giving us a genuine insight into the way that Iranian society works. The interplay between the collective and the individual, between the regime and the population, is presented in an intelligent manner: the regime's paranoia becomes every person's own claustrophobic paranoia, like a disease nobody can escape from, eating away at the very fabric of society, relationships and families.

The main problem with the film is that it is very long (nearly 2 hours 45 minutes) and that it starts slowly, in a deliberative way. Still, a good movie I would recommend.