The Seed of the Scared Fig review
Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
Writers: Mohammad Rasoulof
Stars: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami, and Setareh Maleki
Running Time: 168 minutes
Please note there may be spoilers below
When the Iranian government decided the endeavour of making The Seed of the Scared Fig was worthy of sentencing it’s director, Mohammad Rasoulof, to 8 years in prison, the irony was that this was the kind of endorsement that makes the world take notice. The crimes were a mixed bag of infringements against the country’s security apparatus and Rasoulof’s continued commitment to making documentaries and films that spoke strongly against Iranian societal oppression. Fortunately when those in power are scared of great art, they inevitably draw the public’s attention towards it. When sentenced by Iranian authorities, he was only 4 weeks into production on The Seed of the Scared Fig, arguably his most politically excoriating film.
“In the end, oppressive dictatorships always boil down to who stole my bread.”
Due to Rasoulof’s notoriety in Iran, he directed most of The Seed of the Scared Fig remotely via FaceTime from his home. The thinking being his very presence at shooting locations would draw unwanted attention for a film the entire Iranian government would like to erase from existence. The danger was perilous enough that an alternative shooting script was written to provide authorities with regime friendly evidence that the film being produced was pro-Nezam. Extraordinary circumstances for an extraordinary film. Cinema is rarely as bravely made. Focusing on a single Islamic family, The Seed of the Scared Fig intimately excavates the affect of the Mahsa Amini protests on two Gen-Z daughters and their conservative parents, challenging each until the pressure cooker of Iranian society burns away their inhibitions.
Teenage sisters Sana and Rezvan are never without their smartphones. As the noise of civil unrest seeps through their Tehranian bedroom windows and social media is viraled by images and videos of state sanctioned violence against mostly female protesters, both sisters feel a strength of voice they’ve hitherto not been aware of. Their pious father, Iman, has been promoted as an investigating judge for the Revolutionary Court, where investigating cases is secondary to punishing those deemed enemies of Iran. For his own safely, he is provided a gun – an object of enormous significance to this story. Like a reverse Chekhov’s gun, his priority is to not loose the weapon which the state so suspiciously trusts him with.
Najmeh, mother of the house, is the most fascinating of all. Generationally conservative, she speaks openly in support of the state but is consequently seeing the reality of female suppression on the periphery of her dogma. She is unhappy with the influence of Sadaf, a school friend of her daughters. Sadaf is outspoken, defiant, confident to join protests at school against the compulsory wearing of hijabs. Her daughters soon speak openly about the urge to wear make-up and dye their hair. At a clothes alterer they request for their garments to be more form fitting. When the protests of young girls escalates to the point where going to school isn’t an option, Sana and Rezvan provide safe refuge to Sadaf when she’s injured by Iranian police. Their mother is very clear – she will not tolerate trouble like harboring protesters in her home, not when their father’s job is so delicate and the consequences are so brutal. Yet in the face of seeing Sadaf injured, bleeding and crying, Najmeh’s morality insists she must help, first by tweezing the ball bearings out of their daughter’s friend’s face.
For Najmeh, helping those in need isn’t a choice. Yet after patching her up, she insists Sadaf must leave immediately and take her risks with her family and the streets. The sight of seeing a young girl, shot, redressed in a mandatory and bloodied hajib, limp out the door of the place of her safe harbor sets the standard for the devastating decisions normally moral people will make under great political pressure. Najmeh sees her decision as both sensible and awful – sending a bloody young girl out into the streets to be punished. Her crime is only that of confidence. Director Rasoulof punctuates each moral choice by inserting real social media clips of the protests – all of them showing the blatant brutality of armed police against unarmed protesters. It’s a ruthless choice.
The word brave is again unavoidable when describing The Seed of the Scared Fig. What better way to underline the injustice of your society than by showing clips of the documented injustice that young girls were themselves consuming across Instagram. In the face of such evidence, there’s no defence for those who control the lives of others. It’s the type of flagrant argument Rasoulof leans into as the film decends into an extended sequence of terror. As it so often does, the family dinner table continues the political debate. In the face of his daughters liberalization, Iman holds steadfast to his religious and governmental principles, whilst he himself is in the midst of a crisis of confidence – his job as an investigative judge and its clear streak of corruption weights on him. He arrives home late each night, his eyes empty of hope. He’s worked so hard for the system; yet the system cares nothing for his humanity. It’s a complexity of character that brings so much quality to the film – it would have been so easy to write Iman as a man of simple antagonistic, conservative values, a thinly written villain against the women who silently struggle, but Iman is both complex and monstrous.
The final sequence is an arduous and extended fleet of suffering – one psychologically ruthless enough to remind me of a less explicit Lars Von Trier, Rasoulof dedicated to not so much giving you invisible oppression as opposed to literal, physical oppression. Iman has lost his gun. It is nowhere to be found. And as a man in a family of women there is only one possible answer – it is the women in his life he can no longer trust. In the end, oppressive dictatorships always boil down to who stole my bread. Is it overlong? Maybe. But the irrepressible and relentless depiction of systematic misogyny and it’s effect on the personal, inner life is so hideously definitive, it renders the experience vital and terrifying.
