Nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, Liam Maguren explores what makes both the film and the filmmaking behind The Seed of the Sacred Fig so incredible.
Gripping. Blistering. Tense. You’ll find these words on the poster of The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the latest feature from filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. You can also imagine me tagging ‘+ Liam from Flicks’ beside all the quoted names. I felt those same feelings during my screening, as the nail-scratched arm rest in my seat can attest.
This makes it all sound like a white-knuckled thrill ride, which it is to some degree. But that idea alone sells the experience woefully short.
Rasoulof wraps a fictional story around the very real Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Iran, with the film following a family of four: Iman (Missagh Zareh), the man of the house who’s just landed a career-high job as investigating judge; Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), loyal wife and stern mother determined to keep the household intact; Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami), eldest daughter and the first to question the intensive government crackdown on protesters; and Sana, the impressionable youngest daughter.
Everyone earns sympathy at some point in the film. That comes early for Iman, the poor man quickly realising his promotion simply makes him a puppet to sign off on convictions he doesn’t feel comfortable with. Meanwhile, Rezvan and Sana are doomscrolling through their country’s social media channels, horrified at the (very real) news of a young woman who wasn’t wearing a hijab that consequently died in the hands of law enforcement. Not sharing in their legitimate fears, Najmeh can appear cold and unlikeable, but the film has a sly and affecting way to show how everything she does is for the safety of her daughters.
Between Iman remaining steadfast in his duties, the daughters’ unrest at the state of the nation, and Najmeh’s desperate attempts to keep these growing opposing forces at bay, The Seed of the Sacred Fig masterfully twists these tension points—a growing discomfort that can be felt in the deepest recesses of the stomach. If the climax feels a bit unbelievable compared to the prior two hours of intense and grounded drama, it can be argued that Rasoulof’s crafting a metaphorical mirror here, with a final shot that leaves a lot for viewers to mentally chew on.
What’s just as incredible as The Seed of the Sacred Fig is the story behind it. Rasoulof already copped it from the revolutionary court (who Iman works for in the film), banning him from filmmaking and leaving the country after his previous feature, excellent anthology drama There is No Evil, expressed the inhumanity of forcing young men to enact the death penalty.
Shooting The Seed of the Sacred Fig in secret, the film’s largely set in the main household or locations far away from the city. For the few moments seen in the streets of Tehran, Rasoulof kept himself far away, relying on his ADs to coordinate the scenes and the public’s belief they were shooting for state TV. If you didn’t know all this going into the film, you wouldn’t suspect a thing—it’s that seamless and engrossing.
Covertly sending footage across the planet to editor Andrew Bird, who miraculously pieced it together not knowing a word of Farsi, Rasoulof would eventually join him, fleeing Iran for Germany to escape eight years in prison and a flogging as a result of this film. With the Iranian government wanting nothing to do with the film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig became Germany’s entry for the Best International Feature category at the Academy Awards, where it earned a nomination.
This is not the first time an Iranian filmmaker has defied their government for the sake of the art form. A decade-and-a-half ago, the great Jafar Panahi secretly made This is Not a Film during house arrest. Using documentary in its most direct form, we see Panahi trying to explain the other film he was trying to make before the powers-that-be stopped him, all while a possible prison sentence hovers above his head. Co-directed by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, the film was famously smuggled into France using the ol’ USB-stick-hidden-inside-a-cake trick, managing to make its way into Cannes as a last-minute entry.
An artist who won’t be muzzled, Panahi’s ban from filmmaking did nothing to stop him from busting out critical hits like 2015’s Tehran Taxi, 2018’s 3 Faces, and 2022’s No Bears. All of them critique Iran in their own way, and all of them demonstrate a massive affection for the common Iranian.
Like This is Not a Film, watching The Seed of the Sacred Fig feels more like a revolt where the simple act of watching it amplifies its purpose: to spread both awareness and the feeling of a grand injustice. It is about defiance and it is defiance, an exceedingly rare piece of cinema where both the film and the filmmaking are important works of art.
