14/36
Iman: Sana wants her to be
Investigative judge Iman struggles with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun goes missing, he suspects his wife and daughters, taking draconian measures that strain family ties as social norms crumble. Director Mohammad Rasoulof was originally scheduled to participate as a jury member in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. . However, he was arrested in July 2022 after criticizing the government’s crackdown on protesters in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan following a deadly building collapse. On May 8, 2024, Rasouloff’s lawyer announced that he had been sentenced to eight years in prison, as well as flogging, a fine, and confiscation of his assets. On May 12, 2024, Rasouloff announced that he had managed to flee Iran and was in an undisclosed location in Europe. On May 24, 2024, Rasouloff attended the film’s premiere in Cannes, holding up a photo of the film’s two actors, Soheila Golestani and Missagh Zareh, on the red carpet. blue hair? Painted nails?
Children think differently
Why? Najmeh: The world has changed. Iman: The world has changed, but God has not. Nor has his laws. Najmeh: We have to teach them. Iman: There is always.. Opening credits: "The Ficus Religiosa is a tree with an unusual life cycle. The seeds in bird droppings fall on other trees. The aerial roots sprout and grow to the floor. Then the branches wrap around the host tree and strangle it.
This adds urgency
Eventually the sacred fig stands on its own.". We know a lot about the recent protests in Iran and the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. The hijab is mandatory in Iran and enforced by overzealous religious police. It’s hard to understand outside of Iran that something that seems trivial to us is such a big problem. This film works because it takes us inside a family unit that is affected by these very issues. It seems to use actual protest footage (suitably masked) mixed with fictional actors. The husband works as an investigator for the regime. He is one step away from becoming a judge. He is under intense pressure at work to process a huge number of religious “crimes” without any due process. He finds that the price of his promotion is blind obedience.
He has two daughters
One is in high school, the other is in college. One of the daughters has a boyfriend who is shot after being in a crowd near a protest. We are told that he was an innocent bystander. The mother of the family is very concerned about preserving the family status and reputation, which is why they can get a bigger apartment to live in. However, this will not happen unless every aspect of life is squeaky clean. They can’t even tell the girls what the father is doing because it is a security risk. In one of the first shots of the film, we see the father being handed bullets along with a gun. He gets promoted, but he needs to be able to defend himself. What we see is a real Chekhovian gun in the story. A plausible concept 🙂 The gun disappears from the apartment and the father has to find it or he could be sentenced to prison for losing it.
I saw this film at a festival
This increases the tension a few levels, and from there the film degenerates somewhat. The main effect of the film is to personalize the various political pressures that are placed on each member of the family. The best art goes beyond the titles to show what is happening and how it looks and feels in reality. The story is fiction, but in many ways it feels like a documentary. As a film, it succeeds because it helps you empathize with the real people who have been caught up in this kind of terror. There were scenes that were unwatchable and quite emotional. Now we are approaching the 2-year anniversary of the wave of protests. Not only one person died during the protests.