TIFF Review: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof, 2024) 4 out of 5 stars

It’s one thing to suffer for your art; it’s something else entirely to put your life and freedom on the line. Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof (There Is No Evil) was sentenced to 8 years in prison, with flogging on top of that, for his latest movie, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Fortunately, he managed to escape the country for Europe, where he now resides in exile. It seems as if we cinephiles at least now owe him the courtesy of watching the film that has cost him so dearly.

The good news is that the work is strong, if overly long. In its brutal takedown of both the patriarchy and authoritarianism, it mostly avoids polemics in favor of a taut, thrilling plot with vivid characters. You don’t feel the heavy hammer of messaging so much as absorb it with every fiber of your being.

Iman (Missagh Zareh, Killing the Eunuch Khan), a husband and father of two, has just been promoted to the position of state investigator, one step below a judge of the Revolutionary Court, which is where he would like to eventually end up. His wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani, Two Dogs), has always supported him, and as the story begins she tells him how proud she is of his achievement. They seem to have a very happy marriage.

Because this new position involves approving serious punishments—including the death penalty—it is best to be circumspect with one’s children, so that no one may discover the identity of those passing judgement. Therefore, Iman and Najmeh, though they tell their girls of the promotion, do not divulge all the details. Those daughters are the college-age Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and the high-schooler Sana (Setareh Maleki). Silence is somewhat (if not quite) the word.

Iman’s ascendance coincides with the real-life popular uprisings in reaction to the young woman Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody. She had been detained for the alleged improper wearing of a hijab. Massive numbers of youth (and others) took to the street in what was dubbed the “Women, Life, Freedom” marches. Rasoulof makes copious use of social-media posts from those protests, as Rezvan and Sana scroll on their phones, taking it all in.

What brings the retaliatory violence by the government home to all three woman—mother and children—is the random shooting in the face with a pellet gun of Rezvan’s friend Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi). Though Najmeh is simultaneously terrified for her family’s safety, and outraged that the government is being challenged, we see in her gentle ministrations of Sadaf a dawning realization that something is not right with the state.

The narrative takes a turn for the dire when a gun that was officially issued to Iman for his protection goes missing. Someone must have taken it, but who could that be? What follows is a series of increasingly drastic actions to discover the culprit that threatens to tear the family apart.

Najmeh’s whole existence has been about keeping Iman happy and her daughters secure. What will she do when her husband, increasingly keen to rubberstamp the worst of the government’s sentences, turns his attention to her, Rezvan, and Sana, who themselves view him with suspicion and anger for what he is doing to the protestors? Emotions runs high, and anything can happen.

At 168 minutes, The Seed of the Sacred Fig—which takes its title from an opening text card describing the sometimes parasitic habits of the ficus religiosa—could be shorter. On the other hand, the slow buildup has its rewards. Rasoulof deftly deconstructs how even seemingly decent men can descend into the worst form of narrow thinking and misogyny, while also treating the audience to stunning cinematography and locations. Denying the humanity of those more vulnerable than you is the province of the weak. That way lies madness or death. Both feature prominently here. Heed the lesson.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.