Death in the ruins

A review from a Western perspective of the 2024 Iranian film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”.

Young woman, kill your father! Is this the message of the Iranian film The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof? Most contemporary films show us bad men and good women (try counting!). In this Iranian film there are four such women and two such individual men. In addition, the political regime of Iran, dominated by men, counts from the background.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig brings the concept of good women and bad men to new heights. A confrontation between the two develops, and the film ends with the 17-year-old daughter from a short distance shooting at her father who falls into a shaft. There may be some doubt if the shot itself was lethal, but in the very last scene we see the man’s absolutely dead arm protruding out of a heap of sand in which he is now buried.

A long applause followed. The reception of this women-versus-men film also reached new, enthusiastic heights when it was first shown at the Cannes festival in 2024 (15 minutes, according to Wikipedia).

“Black and white”

But the film also has intelligent features. In my opinion it is an odd mixture of distressing political correctness and interesting symbolism. Maybe the film is smarter than its creator? (Quite possible in art.)

The film falls into two halves of which the first is quite straight-forward. We are introduced to a family of two parents and two daughters aged 17 and 20+ and a fellow student of the oldest daughter. We meet them from the perspective of the women – in the house. Two things happen: First the father gets a new job. Second, the friend of the oldest daughter (a woman) is hit by a kind of shotgun fire in her face, presumably inflicted by the police as she was accidentally entangled in a cracked-down-upon demonstration or street-fighting.

The father’s new job is crucial for what follows in the second part of the film. The new job changes his life and that of his family, but the account of the change – why and how he goes into it – I find a weak point. The man has worked decently as an ordinary judge for 20 years, but in the new job he is expected to be corrupt in favour of the regime and the police. He talks with his wife about it, but the conversation lasts only for a minute or so. The wife first suggests he does not comply, but the man says he has no choice. The wife quickly goes along with that, saying it is no longer his responsibility.

In contrast, the scene showing the tragically wounded friend receive first aid lasts for a long time. The film lingers artistically on the metal pieces being picked out of the young woman’s face one by one by the mother of the house.

Obviously, you could make half a film or more over the dilemma alone, that the male protagonist faces in his new job. And to be fair to the film, we also see him talk with a colleague and friend about it. But I find no deeper thoughts or emotions here. Is the protagonist a weak person? We cannot really say, because the film’s account of him and his transition is quite weak. Also, what we see of his colleague and friend casts no light over the dilemma. We understand the colleague has been fully on board with the corruption for a long time for reasons we can only guess.

The film is now set in “black and white” – three young women in “white”, and two men in “black”, the two now fully associated with the also rather dark regime. The mother is not yet clearly on either side, but she offers no third alternative. She is drawn between the two poles. Compared to her husband, the wife is given generally a stronger presence as a person in the film, I would say. However, also in her case, the dynamics of her transition – she is at the outset loyal to her husband but ends up joining the youth – is missing. (She later joins the youth, seemingly only as a reaction to pressure from the men’s side.)

Accurate?

Is what we see true? So far, this is the only interesting question in the film. Of course, the film is basically fiction, so what should it mean that it is “true”? I guess it should mean that what we see is possible in today’s Iran and also not too special. The more typical for today’s Iran, the more relevant the film would be.

The first half the film also brings a lot of documentary footage. We see confrontations between demonstrators, perhaps other people in the streets, and the police. There is no further presentation of the political background.

The violence we see, documentary as well as fiction, is of course quite heavy stuff. It puts you under pressure – will you support those who are victims to the violence? The film wants you to believe that what we see is true.

Under this pressure it takes some energy to remain at least a bit open. Probably what we see is not all made up, but the prevalence and the further circumstances remain an open question. Also, the broader question remains – in what way is the film relevant to us? I will not take it for granted that sitting in a cinema and for two hours “support” women in Iran is useful for anybody, even in the case of what we see is true.

On the other hand, we should not be indifferent to injustice taking place in other countries. I guess what we need to do, is to consider the films implicit urge for help to people in a distant culture and also not forget to keep a critical view of our own culture as well as the film itself. I shall briefly come back to this at the end of the article. Maybe there is a connection between women and men in Iran and women and men in the West.

A pistol

Returning to the film, the male protagonist now gets a pistol. As is later confirmed in the film, a judge becoming corruptly loyal to the regime, also becomes enemies. An opposition exists, and logically, the regime gives the man a pistol. The freshly armed father of the house takes the pistol home after work every day. One morning, however, he cannot find it. From then on, the film revolves around the search, and later the chase, for the missing pistol.

Under the circumstances, the pistol can be seen as a symbol of masculinity. The otherwise sparsely presented man is stiffened up with a pistol. But when the pistol is lost, the man-figure is also at a loss. We are told that the authorities, which have given him the pistol, will no longer trust him. I do not know if this is realistic under Iranian circumstances. But maybe it is, and the vanished trust adds to the symbolic meaning of the vanished pistol. Not only does the man lose the immediate protection a firearm offers; his connection to the regime is also severed. If he cannot recover the pistol, the protagonist is at risk of falling out of the “non-secret conspiracy” of men in Iran.

First the house is turned upside down, with no result. Then a bizarre “family investigation” follows. It takes place in private, but also external resources are used. The man, who used to be the father of the house, is the “chief investigator”. The investigation obviously destroys the family as a unit of trust.

If the transition of the male protagonist from decent to corrupt is a weak point in the film, the transition of the family from a unit of trust to a collective bundle of nerves, is a strong one. We see how trust is broken down step by step, one suspecting mistrusting question after another.

We also get a sense of link between micro and macro in society, specifically a link between women and men in society and the individual relations on the micro level (this is a question also by us in the West). The film, however, limits itself to focus on micro, but of course, the regime looming in the background remains important.

The search for the pistol ends up in a house in the countryside surrounded by ruins. As the story takes place on a background of political unrest, the corrupt judge has been urged to take his family to this old house for security reasons. The “investigation” continues. The house conveniently has a basement with two lockable “cells”. He who once was the father of the family, simply locks up the two “senior” women. The youngest daughter, still a minor, has so far managed to escape serious suspicion.

But the youngest daughter is the smartest. She first hides and then tricks the chasing man into a room where now he is locked up. She releases her gender companions and then the final chase takes place in the surrounding ruins. The youngest woman turns out to be the hero (??) who has stolen the pistol. (But why is that heroic?)

As already told, the film’s male protagonist ultimately finds his death in the ruins.

Ruins and „ruins“

Do the ruins carry a symbolic meaning? Even if the men’s regime in Iran looks mighty, is it basically a ruin?  I shall now bring in to our discussion certain “ruins” seen in our part of the world. An English writer named Dougald Hine has written a book titled “Work in the ruins” (2024). He is referring to the ruins of Western civilization, which according to the author we now live in. I suspect the author of The Seed of the Sacred Fig sees things in exactly the same way – but he then about „ruins“ in a totally different part of the world.

Does Rasoulof & Co hope that the West in contrast is a shining palace of freedom? I believe myself to know better, and I will invite you to follow Hine looking for possible „ruins“ in the West. The author suggests four tasks for working ourselves out of the present situation:  

1. Salvage the good things we have a chance of taking with us.
2. Being honest [and] mourning the good things that we wish we could take with us, but that we’re not going to get to take with us.
3. Notice and name the things that were never as good as we told each other they were.
4. Picking up the dropped threads.

Interestingly, other authors have picked up Hine’s points and applied them to specific fields (identifying specific tasks, for instance in medicine). I consider “women and men” to be my field, and here is my suggestion:

1. Good things to be salvaged: Asymmetric love. Men have always loved women in a different way than women have loved men. Asymmetry should be preserved – but perhaps also new defined.
2. Mourning good things we cannot take with us: The gentleman and the lady -? This suggestion is a bit contrary to point 1 above, but obviously it is a question if the interrelated roles of gentleman and lady can and should be preserved under basic equity. (At the very least we should check that is doesn’t totally change meaning.)
3. Name and abandon the things that were never as good as we were told: Harmony between the sexes. Harmony is the dream of every loving couple. But harmony is also at odds with a lot of good things.
4. Picking up the dropped threads: Sex-specific excellence. We always wanted to be better, but one of the unintended consequences of feminism (and equity) is mediocracy. Let’s define anew what it means to be an excellent man and an excellent woman.

Can there be new life in the ruins?

There is a global culture war going on. There is an abundance of theories now, on what the culture war is about and if something is wrong with the West. In this article, however, you find the rarest of theories.

I suggest this is about sex (gender). Somebody (and not only Rasoulof & Co) wants you to believe that women in Iran and women in the West fight the same battle. But I will argue the problems are different. There may be problems in both cultures, but they are not the same. Iran may be overly masculine (or suffering from perverted masculinity), whereas we in the West suffer from a lack of masculinity (and primitive, rather than mature).

At least in the West, the Rasoulof & Co film covers up the real problems, not only with a fig leaf, but with a whole tree.

(The article was revised and republished 07.10.2025)

Suggested reading:

• Review of the Italian film „Morgen is auch noch ein Tag“.

• Misandrist art