'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' Review: Mohammad Rasoulof’s Radical Triumph of Cinema | Cannes 2024 (2025)

There are only a handful of films you’ll see in a lifetime that will capture a moment in time with a fraction of the same clarity, conviction, and compassion as Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig. It's a remarkable, revolutionary work of art. As precisely focused and tightly constructed as it is expansive in its aspirations, it’s a rallying cry for the irreplaceable value of artistic expression in a world that will repress it at all costs. This is something that Rasoulof has devoted his cinematic career and life to, even at great personal cost. It’s the type of courage that should be unnecessary, but remains courageous it is all the same. Even just to premiere the film at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was among the absolute best of anything that has been shown here this year, he had to flee Iran after the government sentenced him to, among many ridiculous punishments, 8 years in prison. This makes the film that much more essential to see as it’s an incisive work about the wave of protests against the theocratic authoritarian regime that swept through the country starting in 2022.

It’s also just a damn good movie. Playing out in confined spaces, it takes us into the life of a family whose patriarch has recently become a judge for the Revolutionary Court in Tehran (the same court that sentenced the director). Though it takes place in a handful of settings, the primary of which is a single apartment, it’s vast in ambition and unmatched in just how compelling it all is. It's firing on all cylinders and operating on multiple levels as the family becomes a microcosm for the broader movement in the country to arresting effect.

Not only does it encapsulate the historical moment of protest that was driven by young people, but you get invested in the specifics of this family just as much. The personal is not just the political, it’s the poetic and profound. While its nearly three-hour runtime might seem daunting, it earns absolutely every second and then some. It has riveting performances across the board, sharp writing that cuts deep at every turn, and dynamic direction that makes you unable to look away for even a second. And why would you want to with a film as exceptional as this? It's both essential for the story it's telling and the quietly electrifying filmmaking.

What Is 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' About?

This all begins with a promotion. Iman, played by Misagh Zare, who is currently banned from leaving the country, has been appointed to a new job as part of the Revolutionary Court. This means his family will have more stability, but it also brings with it many changes. The family matriarch Najmeh, played by Soheila Golestani, who is also banned from leaving Iran and was jailed during protests, is committed to doing whatever is asked of her to make this happen. Mostly, this involves her policing the duo’s two daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), to make sure they don’t run afoul of anything that could be considered even remotely critical of the government. Of course, this pointedly could include just about anything, leaving young people with no freedom to determine their futures for themselves.

Thus, things soon get quite tense at home as the children start to rebel against their parents just as protests begin breaking out on the streets. This is inspired by the actual protests that followed the horrific killing of Mahsa Amini (though the film doesn’t explicitly say her name) that the government attempted to cover up with nonsense explanations about how her death was actually from natural causes. Just as Iman is becoming more part of the system that carried out her death, he is also spending long hours as a glorified bureaucratic butcher, rubber-stamping executions left and right as civil unrest in the country continues to grow.

Of course, while the heads of the family want to believe they can insulate themselves from this and frequently rationalize away the abuses they’re seeing, this soon becomes untenable. This reaches its most painful when a family friend, Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), is brutally injured. In a haunting scene where Najmeh attempts to clean a grievous injury she sustained to her face, Rasoulof and cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei focus in on every detail. It’s both unflinching and respectful, never letting us forget the deep wounds government crackdowns leave on the countless people just fighting for the freedom to live their lives.

'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' Is an Incisive Portrait of Modern Iran

This, understandably, even further radicalizes both of the young kids as they begin to question the repression in the wider society and their own family unit. Without going too far into how this unfolds, this takes a turn following the mysterious disappearance of Iman’s government-provided gun that sends him and the film spiraling. He was already in a fragile place before, with this just making it much worse, as he faces a potential professional humiliation and a prison sentence. Rasoulof does an outstanding job of expressing the psychological toll the job is taking on him, felt in moments of silence where he almost seems to collapse before us, just as he then creates a more chilling feeling when we see how he copes with this. Rather than question why a system and job would make him do awful things like this, he begins to increasingly lash out at his own family. While some of this is darkly comical, including when he gets someone to interrogate them about where exactly the gun is or who may have it, it's also deeply unsettling to see cruelty be carried out so casually.

Thus, just as an ongoing struggle for the future of the country unfolds, so too does one in the family. The balance struck in capturing this is perfect from start to finish, with even a simple standout dinner scene, where the patriarch is questioned, crackles with energy. There is also the finale, which is nothing short of one stroke of genius after another in how it escalates. It takes many big leaps, but it lands at the end of every single one. The boldness of everything is matched by the skill of Rasoulof to pull it all off. His approach to every scene is one of boundless creativity just as it is grounded in deeply felt emotions.

At the same time, he brings a refreshing humility to the experience and an awareness of how this is only one small part of a movement. Though he gets what would be an otherwise killer final shot, he turns it over to the people of Iran who fought and are still fighting. May this be a film that is remembered as being part of their ongoing fight toward that freedom.

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The Seed of the Sacred Fig

REVIEW

Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a radical triumph of cinema that deserves to be seen for the story it's telling just as it does the quietly electrifying filmmaking.

Pros

• All of the performances are riveting, capturing the turmoil within the family as a mirror of the political.
• The sharp writing ensures the film is both poetic and profound, cutting deeper at every turn.
• The finale is one stroke of genius after another, landing each big leap it takes in spectacular fashion.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig had its World Premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.