The Seed of the Sacred Fig review – Mohammad Rasoulof’s fearless drama is a damning indictment of the Iranian regime
A government official comes into conflict with his wife and daughters when violent protest grips Iran in the exiled director’s Oscar-nominated latest
It takes an inordinate amount of courage to be a film-maker in Iran, and Mohammad Rasoulof, now exiled director of this Cannes special jury prize-winning, Oscar-nominated political drama, ranks among the very bravest of the brave. Rasoulof, 52, has repeatedly been targeted by Iran’s Islamic revolutionary courts in the past. He received a one-year prison sentence for his 2017 picture, A Man of Integrity, about a goldfish farmer struggling to survive in the face of widespread corruption. In 2020 he was convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda for his scalding, Berlin Golden Bear-winning indictment of the death penalty, There Is No Evil, and sentenced to another year in jail. But for his latest film, which tackles the protests that erupted across Iran in 2022 after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini – arrested for failure to wear a hijab – the charge brought against Rasoulof was the more serious “collusion against national security”, the sentence eight years in jail, flogging, a fine and the confiscation of property. Rasoulof escaped Iran shortly before the film’s premiere in Cannes and is now living in Germany. The Seed of the Sacred Fig may not be his most elegant picture – it has pacing issues and a laboured final act – but it is without doubt Rasoulof’s most important film to date.
To tell stories through the medium of cinema in Iran, directors must navigate a complex system of stifling censorship laws, enforced by the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance. Not surprisingly, many creative people choose to sidestep the official channels altogether and opt for an underground approach, but that comes with its own considerable risks once the films are screened, usually outside Iran at international film festivals. Criticism of the state or of Islam is forbidden, but so are a host of other seemingly minor transgressions: characters drinking alcohol is a no-no; women can’t be seen to sing or dance; and for a female character to be shown on screen with hair uncovered is beyond the pale.
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