Cannes 2024 – The Seeds of the Wild Fig Tree, the Rasoulof evidence (review)
The Iranian filmmaker who has just fled his country where he is harassed by the regime is one of the big favorites with this oppressive political drama.
At the Venice Film Festival in 2020, Mohammad Rasoulof wins the Golden Lion for The Devil does not exist, a powerful reflection on the death penalty in his country. That evening, the filmmaker, held in his country in the hands of a regime that has controlled his actions since 2009, cannot of course be present. It is his daughter Baran who, with a cell phone in hand, allows her father to express himself to the world via an improvised videoconference.
Four years later, the Iranian filmmaker has just said (permanently?) goodbye to his motherland, which he fled a few days before the opening of the 77th Cannes Film Festival where he is presenting in competition Wild fig tree seeds. In this stifling family closed door, the noises of a society which sees its youth rising crack the edges of the frame and more surely the walls of the apartment in Tehran, almost the sole location of the plot. The action takes place, in fact, during the riots which accompanied the death of the young Mahsa Amini, killed by the authorities for a “poorly worn veil” in September 2022.
Mohammad Rasoulof was recently sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison, five of which were applicable for “attack on national security“. The pressure will therefore have been too strong and unbearable for a man who until now showed surprising resilience like his friend-filmmaker and companion in misfortune, Jafar Panahi. His presence on the Croisette for the official presentation of this latest born, Wild fig tree seeds brought a wind of freedom and resistance. It is difficult to see how the jury chaired by Greta Gerwig could miss this cinematic evidence, one of, if not the strongest of this 2024 vintage.
The gesture of Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof at the Cannes Film Festival
The evidence is not only due to the particular context which surrounds the film, nor to its subject but rather to the artistic power deployed by a relentless direction and a scenario which examines beings with incredible acuity. Because if Rasoulof's political line seems clear, he seeks until the end to understand what guides his characters. Starting with the protagonist, Iman, a good father recently promoted within the administrative hierarchy of a revolutionary tribunal. A promotion which will allow his wife and two daughters to finally live in the “four-room apartment” he so desires and too bad if he has to sign death sentences without really trying to find out if the sentence is justified.
The moral dilemma relating to this lowly task will gradually be lifted by this very convenient belief that God decides everything. Problem is, in the street, the youth are revolting and at home, Iman sees her two teenage daughters throwing back in her face the cruelty of the authorities of this country. The loss of his official weapon will precipitate the gradual breakdown of a family straitjacket that has become untenable.
The action of the film takes place in very few settings (the clandestine nature of the filming requires it!), reinforcing this idea of physical, psychological and political confinement. The reverse shot of this bedroom drama are the real videos broadcast on social networks of the ultra-violent repression of the authorities. Fiction thus contaminated by reality is shaken and wounded. The production of images and its different regimes (television news, mobile phones, cinematographic, etc.) interpenetrate to probe a truth that is constantly confiscated and called into question.
The perspectives of the frame thus blocked end up jumping, leaving room for a finale which will replay in a deliberately excessive form the breakup of the family unit. From then on everything becomes parable, metaphor and terribly concrete. Victory through chaos!
By Mohammad Rasoulof. With: Misagh Zare, Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami… Duration: 2h48. Undetermined exit
