As part of the 43rd edition of the Cambridge Film Festival, I was lucky to be able to attend an early screening of The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), the most recent feature film from director Mohammad Rasoulof. The film was shown at Cannes and received very favourable reviews, despite the Iranian government’s attempt to block it from being released. Just as with Rasoulof’s previous works, the film garnered heavy criticism from his home country’s regime. No stranger to political controversy, Rasoulof had previously been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for his two previous films, A Man of Integrity (2017) and There Is No Evil (2020). His latest film, which takes direct aim at the Iranian justice system, led to him being sentenced to 8 years in prison. As a result of this sentence, Rasoulof has had to flee Iran and is presently exiled in Europe.

“The film’s focal character goes from an idealistic lawyer to a morally challenged man”

The Seed of the Sacred Fig follows the fallout of the real life Mahsa Amini protests which erupted throughout Iran in 2022, following her death in police custody. This civil unrest was exacerbated by the government’s refusal to allow for peaceful protest and the very overt instances of police brutality subsequently exercised on the protesters, especially towards the women who dared to defy the Iranian regime’s restrictive modesty laws.

The film’s focal character is Iman (played by Misagh Zare) who has just been appointed as an investigating judge in the capital’s Revolutionary Court. Throughout the film’s runtime, we see how pressure from his superiors and the mounting concerns surrounding the protests and riots progressively corrupt him. Iman goes from an idealistic lawyer who believes that what he is doing is for the betterment of the country he has served for 20 years, to a morally challenged man who grapples with mistrust and paranoia. The display of corruption in Rasoulof’s film is evocative of Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider (2022), another recent Iranian film that focuses on statal complicity in violence against women.

The film is a truly harrowing watch, with the extended 168-minute version, shown at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, showing actual footage of the special forces and police beating women in the street, shooting protestors and abusing their powers in the name of defending G-d’s laws. Whilst Rasoulof’s choice to include these graphic sequences is understandable, choosing to show such graphic displays of violence felt, at points, unnecessary. This is especially true in the context of our contemporary world, in which images of horrific acts of violence are often normalised and therefore run the risk of further desensitising viewers to violations of human rights. This was one of my principal reservations when watching the film. Whilst Rasoulof’s aim with The Seed of the Sacred Fig was to critique Iran’s violent and repressive political regime, the film also serves as a piece of entertainment, which I feel ultimately diminished the importance of the protesters’ suffering.

“The graphic displays of violence felt, at points, unnecessary”

Through the film’s simultaneous narrative focus on family dynamics, we also see how Iman’s work life starts to poison his home as well. Parallels are drawn between the oppressive practices of the judiciary and the social expectations imposed on the women in Iman’s immediate circle. For instance, through Soheila Golestani’s character Najmeh, the viewer is made to see the patriarchal violence Iman exerts on his family, which Najmeh has had to fight in order to protect their children. In this way, Najmeh’s journey of self-actualisation in the film is used by Rasoulof to display the possibilities that are, and should be, available to women when they are able to emancipate themselves from patriarchal constraints, be it on a national scale or within the family unit. Rasoulof chooses to level his critiques not only at those in power, but also at the individuals who accept the status quo and choose to remain apolitical. For example, before Najmeh’s politicisation in the film, her chosen subservient behaviour is presented critically, in a similar vein to Iman’s controlling conduct.

Given the current escalating humanitarian situation in the Middle East and the direct involvement of Iran in it, this film that showcases the extent to which the Iranian regime subjugates its own citizens raises important questions concerning how far the ruling authority would be willing to go in terms of wider escalation in the region. The increasing influence of Ali Khamenei and his government has turned this film into a must-watch. Overall, the critical reception to the film has been largely positive, earning it the Special Jury Award at Cannes and a Best International Feature Film nomination at this year’s Oscars.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig will be released in UK cinemas on Friday 7th February 2025.