No Longer Daddy’s Girls — The Seed of the Sacred Fig

William J Hammon
11 min readDec 30, 2024

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One of the sadder aspects of Awards Season is when it becomes increasingly clear that one or more categories at the Oscars will not be a contest at all, the winner all but predetermined due to the marketing campaigns from the films and studios involved. One would hope that in a year as relatively mediocre as 2024 that the competition would be a bit more varied and open-ended, with lively debates leading up to the big night. Unfortunately, for the third year running, it looks as if one of the majors, International Feature, is already done and dusted. Netflix has lobbied hard for Emilia Pérez, landing a boatload of Golden Globe nominations for its troubles, and the film is already on several Academy shortlists. The combination of the film’s premise and notable American stars will almost certainly put it over the top (if it gets a Best Picture nomination next month, consider it a lock), even though it only has a “not bad” Rotten Tomatoes rating of 76%. I haven’t seen it yet, but that feels like too low of a score to designate something as a surefire winner, but that’s what the For Your Consideration bombardment has aimed for ever since the picture was announced.

This is particularly lamentable when presented with Germany’s entry, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which holds a 94% rating after its festival circuit run, and has now been released to the general public. I saw this on the opening night of AFI Fest back in late October, and two months later, it still sticks with me. This is not only the best International Feature entry I’ve seen so far, but it’s one of the best of the year full stop. The performances, writing, artistic style, and relevant themes make this a compelling suspense of Hitchcockian proportions, and when you factor in the dangers faced by the cast and crew in just making the thing, it’s hard to see how an open and fair race for the prize could render this as an also-ran.

Written and directed by renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, the movie not only depicts acts of protest against his homeland’s theocratic regime, but serves as its own form of rebellion. The title itself (explained in opening text) refers to a species of fig tree that grows and survives by strangling other nearby plant life, seen as a metaphor for how the post-revolution government has sustained itself by figuratively choking the life and culture out of its own people. Rasoulof has been arrested multiple times and banned from his craft for making works critical of the Ayatollahs and their repressive rule of law, but this time, he literally had to flee the country and smuggle the footage to Germany in order to finish the product and avoid a lengthy prison sentence. That’s how subversive the administration fears this picture to be, and its stars still face potential legal jeopardy, as they were unable to leave.

This alone would make the film compelling enough to see, but what really blows your mind is just how tame the core issues would appear to those of us in the first world. As regressive as things get in this country from time to time (especially this year), it’s sort of amazing to be reminded that even in the digital age, there are some places that treat their people — especially women — even worse. Stripped down to its most basic tenets, this is a story about just how far someone will go to prove their loyalties to an ideal and an institution over simply doing the right thing, and the journey we take to get to that inflection point is a masterpiece of the modern political thriller.

Missagh Zareh plays Iman, a prosecutor in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. After more than 20 years of steadfast, dedicated, and devout service, he’s promoted to the rank of Investigating Judge. He had been hoping for a full judgeship, as that would mean the government would provide him with a complimentary apartment bigger than the one he has now, as well as a security detail for his family. Still, he’s happy for the recognition, seeing it as a step towards his career goal. However, he quickly learns from a colleague that he’s being set up to fail. His superiors wanted another candidate who was less experienced, and once they were voted down, the job was given to Iman so that he can mess up once and be fired, clearing the way for the one they’re grooming. They’re also aware that Iman’s daughters, Rezvan and Sana (Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki) are active on social media, so this is seen as an opportunity to either censor two young people in the wake of increasing youth unrest, or exploit the perception of a permissive lifestyle to knock Iman down professionally.

As part of his new role, Iman is immediately beset with moral and ethical dilemmas. He’s told to get his family off socials, which he doesn’t see as a problem, but he knows his children will resist, especially as they don’t know what he does for a living (another concession he’s had to make for the sake of the so-called greater good). Rather than being assigned security, he’s issued a gun to protect himself and his loved ones in the event that his personal information is doxed online. This is now a genuine concern, as the real crux of his new job is to rubber-stamp death warrants for student demonstrators, many of whom are arrested and convicted without trial. The “Investigating” part of his job title is intentionally rendered moot, as he is ordered to send hundreds of young adults to their ends without even checking to see if they’ve done anything wrong. Deep down, Iman knows this isn’t proper, but he also knows that if he refuses, he loses everything. But even in spite of that, he is a man who has spent his entire life in this system, and was raised to believe in it wholeheartedly. So even though he’s personally conflicted about it, he resolves to do his duty for God and country.

This is the same attitude held by his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), who never questions his instructions, dotes on him day and night, and instantly takes his side in any argument with their kids. She’s fed a constant diet of propaganda from state television, and has never really had to reckon with any disparity between reality and the narrative. She’s had no reason to doubt what she’s been told since she was born, and so it’s easy to dismiss what Rezvan and Sana tell her about what they see on Facebook and other outside sources. At the same time, she’s also had to live with the ingrained inequality of the sexes in Iran, so there’s a natural empathy when it comes to the girls, as well as their best friend Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), who’s about to start college and move into a dormitory for the first time. Najmeh scolds the girls for making promises about staying over at their house without Iman’s permission, but respects their level of responsibility and loyalty to their friend, so she usually relents.

Pressures escalate quickly, however, with the highly publicized death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. For those unaware, Amini was arrested and killed in police custody for allegedly wearing her hijab inappropriately. Officials put out a bullshit line about her dying of a heart attack, which was quickly called out for the obvious lie that it was, and exacerbated by surveillance video that showed the level of violence inflicted upon her. This led to massive demonstrations over several months, with thousands of young women openly discarding their head scarves in solidarity. It also led to one of the most severe and repressive crackdowns in the nation’s history, with nearly 20,000 people arrested and more than 500 killed by authorities.

This is what drives the central conflict of the story. Rezvan and Sana know the truth about what’s going on, and they constantly show Najmeh the footage broadcast live on phones to the entire world (a great deal of actual phone footage, including video of police shooting people in broad daylight, is included in the final film), confronting her with the proof of the moment and a counter to her decades of uncritical thought about the real workings of the establishment. Najmeh’s conflict between her maternal instincts and her fealty to the state are tested further when Sadaf is severely injured as a bystander during one of the protests, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She knows that she must help, because it could just as easily have been one of her own, and even if she disagrees with the politics, Sadaf is still a human being who deserves to live in peace. At the same time, she can only go so far, because any public display of aid could compromise her husband’s position. Speaking of Iman, he’s inundated daily with new execution orders he has to sign, which takes its own emotional toll on him. To then be further challenged by his daughters when he comes home is enough to drive him to extreme anger, because to him, not only are Sadaf and the others breaking their country’s law, they’re breaking God’s law, and tolerance can only be extended so far.

Had this been the entire movie, it would be more than enough to keep viewers on the edges of their respective seats. It’s a tragic but all too real human drama where everyone is put into impossible positions where they want to do good but the social, religious, and political structures built around them are too strong for them to accomplish much of anything. The frustration, guilt, doubt, and fear they all feel to one degree or another would make for a dynamite character study, because at least on the surface, there’s no true “bad guy,” just well-meaning people doing the best they can in an extreme circumstance.

But then the other shoe drops when Iman’s gun goes missing. Iman was initially quite uncomfortable even having a weapon, because despite the morbid nature of his job, he’s not a violent person. He can perform his duties by reminding himself that he’s at a remove from the situation and because the people he sentences to die are criminals. Out of sight, out of mind. But having to safeguard the weapon adds a degree of stress he can’t handle, and on multiple occasions he forgets to properly store it, with Najmeh often finding it in his laundry and stowing it away for him. When the gun disappears, he goes into panic mode, because if his superiors find out he misplaced it, not only will it cost him his job, but his freedom as well, as losing government-issued property carries a prison term.

This is where the film shifts gears into a true Alfred Hitchcock-level thriller, as we watch Iman slowly descend into madness. He can’t remember if he lost the gun or not, and as each day passes and his daughters become more emboldened to question him (and the government and Allah by extension), the more suspicious and paranoid he gets, thinking that either Najmeh or the girls have stolen it from him in order to humiliate him. He questions, berates, and even threatens his family, even going so far as to orchestrate a “therapy session” that’s just a cover for his family to be interrogated by another colleague known to use torture as a means of obtaining confessions.

These scenes are filled to the brim with palpable suspense, aided by fantastic writing and performances across the board. Golestani in particular shines because Najmeh is trying desperately to ride the center line in all this, but Iman keeps moving the proverbial goalposts, becoming more unhinged and unreasonable with each passing scene. She knows the role she’s expected to play as a wife and mother in this system, but it becomes harder and harder as Iman gets more demanding and Rezvan and Sana remain ever insistent that they’ve done nothing. Part of this is the secrecy that Iman is ordered to maintain (the girls aren’t told when he gets the gun, and for the first several rounds of “questioning,” it’s all phrased in nebulous terms because he’s not supposed to reveal that he was even issued a weapon), so plausible deniability becomes a genuine variable. But what really drives Iman over the edge is this sick devotion he has to the religious and political order. The situation has forced him to choose between his family and his government/deity, and as real-world consequences start creeping up on him, his choice is not only appallingly clear, but borderline terrifying.

Rasoulof frames these shots immaculately, keeping scenes intimate without being overbearing or gratuitous. The score by Karzan Mahmood prods at you just enough to keep things as tense as possible, but Rasoulof also gets a ton of mileage out of Zareh’s body language and imposing presence, enhancing his intimidation tactics with fantastic lighting. He also makes sure that every time Iman sinks further away from his humanity, the agency of the women is increased in kind, treating the family unit as a microcosm for how Iran could eventually see itself evolve into a truly free country. Truth is empowering, and there is strength in numbers. The more Iman tightens his grip, the easier it is for our three heroines to slip through his fingers and realize their own initiative, and it’s fascinating to watch unfold, especially once the location of the gun is revealed. It all leads to a climax that leaves Hitchcock behind and goes full Stanley Kubrick (seriously, if you don’t see the obvious parallels to The Shining in this denouement, I don’t know what to tell you), yet there’s still enough originality in the execution for Rasoulof to put his own spin on things, keeping the affair purely in the arena of homage rather than ripoff.

I was absolutely blown away by this film, one of the few true gems in a year that was starving for quality and ambitious storytelling. Iranian cinema in general is intriguing to me (particularly the works of Asghar Farhadi), because it shows the world a nation caught in the middle of two extremes, with one side struggling to join the modern world while the other holds power and uses it for all it’s worth to keep its people culturally stuck in the Middle Ages. The fact that The Seed of the Sacred Fig is seen as a criminal act by these repressive bodies (again, to the point that Germany is submitting this film because Rasoulof had to abscond for his own safety) only reinforces that ongoing strife. When you really come down to it, this is essentially a story about a family asking their patriarch to stop hurting people in the name of protecting them and actually lead by graceful example. But because of where and when it’s taking place, it explodes into a rigid thriller that sees a man destroyed by being too true a believer, while conversely serving as an anthem for female agency and a call for upheaval in the name of sanity. You owe it to yourself to see this if you get the chance. If nothing else, you’ll want to know just what the rest of the world will likely be missing as the Academy defaults to Netflix for one of its marquee prizes.

Grade: A

Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Have you seen any of the other International Feature semifinalists? What would you do if you suddenly found out your dad was packing? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!

Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on December 30, 2024.

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William J Hammon
William J Hammon

Written by William J Hammon

All content is from the blog, “I Actually Paid to See This,” available at actuallypaid.com

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