If you’ve heard anything about The Seed of the Sacred Fig, it’s almost certainly about how the contents of the film resulted in its director, Mohammad Rasoulof, getting sentenced to eight years in prison, as well as flogging, a fine, and confiscation of property by Iranian authorities. After the call for his arrest, Rasoulof and his crew spent twenty-eight days escaping the country on foot. He eventually found asylum in Germany just ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where he held up photos of the actors who were barred from leaving the country. An immediate favorite for the Palme d’Or, the jury recognized the film with a special award, and an emotional Rasoulof was given a fifteen minute standing ovation. Germany has since chosen the film as its submission to the Oscars in the Best International Feature category, making Sacred Fig a sure lock for a nomination, and perhaps a win.

The tale is sensational, certainly illustrating whatever point Rasoulof set out to make without ever having to see the film. And while he is an auteur definitely deserving of success, I fear that the story surrounding the film will result in criticism for it getting lost in the ether, or worse, allow it to be exempt from criticism altogether.

Taking place during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, the largest nationwide civil unrest the country had seen since the Islamic Revolution, Iman, husband of Najmeh and father to daughters Rezvan and Sana, has just been promoted to investigator in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. While the job offers him a better salary and apartment, it requires him to sign off on judgments, including death sentences, without being allowed to review evidence. Since his position is of high security, he is required to stay anonymous, and is given a handgun for protection. While Najmeh is devoted to her husband, Rezvan and Sana are glued to their phones, struck by the endless videos of ongoing police brutality—their best friend becomes a victim of one of these attacks. The divide between parent and child comes to a head when Iman loses his gun, his unraveling paranoia causing him to turn on his own family.

One of the most compelling aspects of Sacred Fig is its incorporation of social media. Rezvan and Sana are deliberately told to stay offline because of their father’s new position, nodding to the Internet’s power to shape the perspectives of young people, unlike the national news channels playing on their television at home. As the girls scroll through their Instagram feeds, Rasoulof cuts to the terrifying and bloody protest footage, letting it play out in full for the viewer to witness. We see no dramatized version of the protests or the violence on the streets of Tehran—what they are seeing is as real to them as it is to you and me.

In some ways, it feels like this film was intended as a vehicle to get that footage out to the world, uncensored. But it also manages to capture an experience anyone online has come to know so well: the horror, and subsequent normalization, of opening your phone to see a dead body. As Iman’s daughters watch video after video, it’s impossible not to think of Gaza, or the boundless other forms of filmed violence we have become desensitized to. It’s an inextricably modern framing device, done entirely with tact. Because we’ve been in their shoes, we understand the alienation Rezvan and Sana feel, and how it’s caused between them and their parents an ideological split.

At dinner, the topic of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody is brought up. Amini was arrested in September 2022 for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. The daughters believe she was a victim of police brutality, while the parents insist she had a heart attack. The family has developed opposing perceptions of reality, and different coping mechanisms: the girls slowly but surely fall into rebellion, Najmeh doubles down for the sake of everyone’s safety, and Iman has no choice but to compartmentalize.

The dissonance between Iranians and their government takes shape in this domestic unit. And while this dynamic certainly underlines the film’s message, it may come at the expense of the storytelling. Clocking in at nearly three hours, the film takes its time for the first two thirds, and most of the early focus is spent on the women of the family. We get a real window into the relationship between Najmeh and her daughters, making both their bond and dysfunction entirely believable. The problem lies with Iman and his character—or lack thereof.

At the beginning of the story, we see Iman confide in his wife about the knowledge that he must blindly sign off on death sentences, but apparently he comes to terms with that off-screen. Considering what’s on the line if Iman’s gun isn’t found, a blow up is understandable, but what we know about him isn’t enough for it to feel earned. We know he trusts his wife, and we’re told he loves his daughters, but we do not nearly see enough of his day-to-day life to comprehend the kind of man he is. Najmeh hints at her husband’s “true colors” far too late into the narrative, perhaps explaining away how much she placates him, but the only other thing we know about Iman is his devotion to God, and to the nation state—it would be worrisome, of course, if those two things were mistaken as the same.

In the third act of the film, the family travels out of Tehran to Iman’s childhood home in the countryside. On the kitchen wall is a framed photo of young Iman with his family, and Sana asks why they’ve placed their hands on their hearts. Najmeh says it’s a gesture of submission, faith and obedience to God, prompting Sana to ask why they interfere with her relationship with God. “Woe to him who loses his faith,” Iman responds, and the sisters give each other a long look. In the next scene, Iman begins his battle for control that lasts until the film’s finale, declaring to the women that they must hand over the liar.

Those scenes, in that order. Why? We’ve known Iman to be religious: the very first shots of the film show his tranquil prayer at a mosque. He’s conservative, sure, considering Sana’s desire to paint her nails and dye her hair as something blasphemous, and hallucinating Rezvan driving in traffic with tattoos and without hijab, in the throes of his growing mistrust. But to me, none of these traits would directly explain why Iman ends up the way he does—unless, it was supposed to. Unless we were supposed to see his prayer, his visits to the mosque, his childhood devotion to God, as a hint to his “true colors”, to the darkness inside him.

Now, that might be a stretch. Especially since Najmeh, who is strict but decidedly not a villain, is shown reading the Quran at night, and encouraging her husband not to lose faith during hardship. The daughters, however, are not portrayed as practicing at all, seeming to have an unspoken rejection of Islam as a result of the world around them. They are positioned in the story as heroines, a voice for Iranian youth and women like Mahsa Amini, shining lights in the dark and scary society they’ve been trapped in.

I am not someone who is against the critique of religion, whether it be religious institutions, peoples, or even essential texts, as long as these critiques come from an authentic desire to explore such ideas with nuance. It would be one thing if the characters themselves could not differentiate between devotion to God and devotion to the Iranian government—it would actually be intriguing if that idea was examined, in whatever depth. But Sacred Fig seems comfortable conflating the two, or at the very least feels no need to draw lines in the sand. Without those lines, the film’s procured western liberal audience might come to dangerous conclusions, opening the floodgates for holier-than-thou condescension that ultimately dehumanizes Muslims under the guise of support for their liberation.

A recurring and frankly concerning thread has been coming out of cinema from the Arab/Muslim world for a while now, in its messaging about Islam. As stated before, I am not a purist. But I strongly believe that narratives like the one in Sacred Fig have a responsibility to depict their cultures fairly, and especially to not depict Islam as aligned with darkness. Had we seen more of Iman—who I don’t believe was intended to be inherently evil—these implications would not be so pronounced. But stripping him of screen time has resulted in these questions being raised, and in the end, strips the movie of its desired effect.

My admiration and respect for the work of the cast and crew is immense. The lengths they went to to create this film was for an ultimately righteous goal: bringing light to the oppression of Iranian people. In that, they succeeded. I will not be unhappy if Rasoulof wins an Oscar, and I will certainly anticipate that audience giving him a full-house standing ovation—while also being acutely aware that the topic of Gaza, for instance, or even the word Palestine, will not be uttered once the entire night.

‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ - Review

‘Anora’ - Review