The Reel Review
After his daughter’s friend is arrested during nationwide protests against Iran’s oppressive, authoritarian rule, a newly-appointed investigator to Iran’s Revolutionary Council discovers that the handgun assigned to him for protection is missing. Paranoia over what will happen to him unless it is recovered causes him to inflict his interrogation tactics on his wife and teenage daughters, in this political thriller set during the nation’s 2022/23 protests.
Writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof and his cast and crew of pro-democracy artists courageously shot the film throughout Iran in total secrecy, blending it with videos from social media of the real-life protests and brutal government crackdown. The harrowing story captures the complicated family dynamics – an absentee father who ends up rubber stamping the death warrants for hundreds, a wife brainwashed by government-controlled news media and consumed with protecting his career above all else, and their horrified teenage daughters, who, thanks to social media, see what is really happening.
Taut pacing keeps the nearly three-hour movie moving along at a brisk pace, despite a third act that turns the riveting psychological drama more into a pulp thriller. Still, a well-done and important film highlighting daily life in Iran and how authoritarianism, fear and paranoia can ruin a family.
REEL FACTS
• Just days after he finished filming, Iran sentenced writer/Director Mohammad Rasoulof to eight years in prison, a flogging and seizure of his property. He and several cast and crew members were able to flee the country, gaining asylum in Germany. The two who played the parents remain trapped in Iran, their passports confiscated by authorities.
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig is Germany’s 2025 Oscar entry for Best International Film.
• Rosoulof says was inspired to make this film while in prison during the 2022/23 anti-government protests for a prior film and learned how to flee the country from fellow inmates. He says he believes the anti-government movement ultimately will prevail.
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