‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Movie Review [AFI Fest 2024]: Mohammad Rasoulof’s Rattling Political Drama Converts Into A Searing Thriller

Photo from Neon

From Jeff Nelson

Cinema has the power to serve many purposes beyond entertainment. Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a blistering portrait of activism wrapped in a family drama that slowly morphs into an unsettling thriller. The slow-burn approach allows the messaging to resonate and breathe on a nuanced level. It’s important filmmaking that speaks to social injustice and how family doesn’t always have our best interest at heart.

Iman (Missagh Zareh) is promoted to investigating judge during the political unrest in Tehran, Iran. When his government-issued gun goes missing, he grows increasingly paranoid that his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), are to blame.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig’s greatest meanings interweave with its title, evolving similarly to the strangler fig plant it refers to. Power and paranoia transform the family’s life. Iman’s excitement and satisfaction surrounding his new promotion shine through when he shows Najmeh his new firearm to protect the family against citizen threats. After all, he now signs off on defendant executions. However, his wife is notably uneasy about the gun’s presence, particularly as Iman’s immersion within the family disintegrates. The lines between an oppressive government and the family structure blur, forcing Rezvan and Sana to define every aspect of their lives around their father’s new job.

Najmeh wants to believe in her government, but her daughters are less hopeful. They scroll through real footage and images of the protests on social media where law enforcement used shocking violence against its own people. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is fueled by a suffocating rage that continues to wreak havoc on the girls’ lives, while their mother attempts to keep her head buried in the sand to avoid unwanted attention. Iman sees their justifiable questions as antagonistic, giving him further self-justification to interrogate his own family as criminals.

Iman is the least narratively explored character, representing the government itself as a mysterious and omnipresent force within the family. He’s rarely physically there, yet Zareh still infuses him with an intimidating presence in nearly every scene. Najmeh, Rezvan, and Sana are all fully formed characters, marvelously played by Golestani, Rostami, and Maleki, respectively.

The drama and thriller aspects make a cohesive whole, but Rasoulof’s screenplay does lose its way in the third act. Frustrating character motivations and cat-and-mouse action games unravel the film’s quiet horrors that occasionally burst into ugly spurts of violence. The ending stays true to Rasoulof’s messaging, even if the story grows somewhat detached.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig holds social, political, and generational power that refuses to be silenced. Rasoulof’s colossal filmmaking talent is on marvelous display, mending a family drama and a political thriller into a meaningful and absorbing story of regression and progression within societal and domestic spheres. 

Rating: 4/5

The Seed of the Sacred Fig played AFI Fest 2024 on October 23rd, 2024. It hits theaters on November 27th, 2024.

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