Two years after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd arrested by the morality police, the release on Wednesday of the film “The Seeds of the Wild Fig Tree”, shot clandestinely in Iran, is quite symbolic.
The film was one of the shocks of the last Cannes Film Festival and left with a special jury prize.
To save his skin, director Mohammad Rasoulof had to flee Iran secretly after filming this paranoid thriller about an investigator in the midst of a crackdown on the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.
It follows Iman, an investigator in the service of the Iranian regime, who is going to be promoted to investigating judge, while the revolt rages after the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested at the end of 2022 for not respecting the strict Islamic dress code.
Ordered to sign execution orders for arrested protesters, he chose his conscience over his career.
Rezvan and Sana, his two daughters, follow the upheavals of youth from home, obeying their father while secretly helping their friends. Their mother, Najmeh, a wife submissive to her husband, tries to maintain a bridge between them.
But the pressure on the regime increases. The judges, like Iman, are becoming more paranoid about the young people. She is given a gun to protect herself. When the gun disappears from her nightstand, the poison of suspicion creeps into the family and ends up causing it to explode.
Beyond the thriller, the film is an X-ray of an Iranian society crushed under the weight of religion and a repression that continues to grow. It is a plea for freedom and a tribute to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, which shook Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini.
The filmmaker has also interspersed his film with numerous amateur and social media images showing student gatherings, women burning their headscarves in public, and police brutality.
Inseparable from its production conditions, the film is also a tour de force with brilliant production, even including a car chase scene, shot with the means at hand.
Setareh Maleki, who plays one of Iman’s daughters, said in Cannes that she didn’t know the director’s identity right away. “I’m a bit crazy, so choosing this role was not a problem for me,” she said.
“I was the first or second person to join the team and for months people didn’t tell me who the director was in order to ensure the safety of the film,” she said. “But I guessed it was Mohammad Rasoulof. Who else would have that courage?”
Even though it was small, the team took months to assemble and had to work discreetly to circumvent censorship.
The film’s title is inspired by a variety of fig trees, whose seeds are digested by birds, before being released in their droppings onto other trees.
When they germinate, their branches entwine until they strangle the tree on which they attach themselves, allowing the new fig tree to attach itself and grow, freed.
A transparent metaphor for the hopes of Iranian dissidents.
