Seed of the Sacred Fig: Reflections

I highly recommend this Iranian film less for its artistic value and more for its political relevance, as a novel political thriller in the genre of Gavras's Z, to the contemporary struggle of Iranian women for their rights. The movie brings on the silver screen the ugly reality of sexual repression in today's theocratic Iran, combining fiction with real footages of protests and brutal repressions in the streets of Iran. It is a powerful denunciation of an archaic sexual regime where centuries' old sharia is used as justification to cower women to submission to pre-modern values, but with only limited success as vividly reflected in the on-going struggle of heroic Iranian women resisting their subjugation to theocratic norms.

Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, the Seed of Sacred Fig was made secretly in Iran and the cast and the crew might ultimately face dire consequences for braving an unauthorized subversive movie that echoes the sentiment of millions of Iranians who are simply fed up with decades of religious oppression and seek freedom; there is nothing 'spiritual' about the post-revolutionary cage that the ruling clergy has built for millions of Iranian women, who are apt to be detained, lashed, and publicly humiliated simply for their sin of displaying their hair and defying forced veiling; in fact, the new veil law provides for death penalty for repeat offenders, i.e., a nightmare of reason. Therefore, to honor this movie is at the same time to pay hommage to and honor a whole generation of Iranian women who have bravely stormed on the historical stage to demonstrate their resolve for freedom. There is, as always, a price to pay for stiriving for freedom, and in this movie we experience it with the young female university student who loses an eye for daring to participate in a student rally. The pain and agony of her suffering is brought home to the audience as the camera lingers on her deformed face. This is not a case of overindulging in a dramatic scence as it is a case of drilling into the viewer's consciousness the brutality inflicted on innocent souls whose only crime is to want to live free from the chain of religious dogmatism -- thousands of young Iranian women have lost an eye in the hands of regime's thugs and the movie's microcosm definitely hits home with millions of Iranians. The movie then becomes a permanent, and organic, part of their incessant, heroic struggle, with so many veritable sacrifices.

Indeed, what is remarkable about the Seed of Sacred Fig is its uncompromising, direct message regarding today's Iran, rife with civil discontent, where no amount of repression from the above can extinguish the popular zeal for freedom.

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