‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Repression Hasn’t Chastened Mohammad Rasoulof, Who Responds With a Marathon Domestic Critique
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic For more than two decades, Iman (Misagh Zare) has functioned as a civil servant, doing work that his kids — who represent Iran’s younger generation — would be ashamed of.
Better to keep them in the dark. At last, for his loyalty, Iman has been given a promotion, not to judge (the job he wants) but to inspector (a job no one wants).
Inspectors are the goons who interrogate students his daughters’ age when they’re arrested for protesting, the ones who sign off on death sentences for alleged dissidents.
Iman doesn’t just work for the Iranian regime; he is the regime. With livid, thinking-man’s thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” director Mohammad Rasoulof responds to his own imprisonment in 2022 (during which a wave of protests erupted after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and beaten for wearing an improper hijab) by examining Iranian tensions within the context of a well-placed Tehran family.
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