When a Father Chooses His Politics Over His Family

This article contains spoilers for the film The Seed of the Sacred Fig.

When the film The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins, an Iranian lawyer named Iman (played by Missagh Zareh) has just been promoted to “investigating judge.” The position gets him a higher salary, promises him a luxurious three-bedroom home—and arms him with a gun. Iman’s new role requires him to produce and confirm evidence for prosecutors to use; that makes him a target for those convicted by or seeking to sway Iran’s secretive Islamic Revolutionary Court.

Iman intends to do his part well. At dinner with his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and their daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), he informs the two teenagers of the dangers he faces. Rezvan and Sana look worried, but they agree to help keep him safe by not discussing his work outside their home. Iman isn’t just their father and their family’s breadwinner: He’s their hero too.

Until he’s not. By the end of the writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof’s film, in theaters now, Iman has transformed from the sympathetic patriarch into a vindictive and terrifying villain. His latent paranoia and growing inability to separate his work life—where he’s actually rubber-stamping convictions, not investigating them—from his home life turn him into his family’s very own autocrat. The Seed of the Sacred Fig itself shape-shifts from a quiet study of a close-knit foursome into a high-octane thriller. The film is, as a result, a portrait of how Rasoulof perceives the systematic oppression within his home country, from which he is now exiled. The government’s rejection of its citizens’ efforts for change is personal to him—as devastating and painful, the film suggests, as having a father turn against his own flesh and blood.

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Rasoulof, one of Iran’s most prolific directors, has said that he had intended to continue working in the country, despite repeated roadblocks and bans on his films. Yet spending his career telling stories about those who participate in state-sponsored violence—including interrogators, executioners, and torturers—and exposing the regime’s brutality has made him a criminal to Iranian officials. In 2010, he was arrested for attempting to make a movie about demonstrations following the 2009 presidential election; in 2022, he served jail time for signing a petition condemning the government’s activities. Rasoulof shot Sacred Fig in secret, watching the set from a distance to avoid calling attention to himself or his production. When he was sentenced to eight years in prison shortly after he finished filming, he decided to flee Iran. He arrived in Germany following a monthlong journey, just in time to wrap the movie before its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Award.

The Iranian government’s crackdown on dissenters affected Rasoulof’s every step in making Sacred Fig, but it also provided the source of the film’s raw power. The story takes place as the Woman, Life, Freedom protests of 2022, which began after a woman died while held in police custody for allegedly not wearing a hijab, kick off throughout Tehran; unable to stage reenactments in the open, Rasoulof interspersed real-life footage of the demonstrations throughout the film. Iman dismisses his daughters’ concerns that the media are censoring this imagery, and the inclusion of authentic recordings emphasizes that he’s denying reality—both his and the viewers’ own. His refusal to take his daughters seriously—which stems from his steadfast commitment to his own beliefs—leads them to mistrust him in turn, creating a grim, seemingly unbreakable cycle.

The film takes a heart-wrenching turn when Iman can no longer find the gun he’d been given, and he starts to suspect his children of stealing it. Rasoulof had carefully portrayed him as a devoted family man: He prays with Najmeh each morning. When he drives his daughters home, they fall asleep in the back seat. Rezvan and Sana watch home videos of him for comfort. His wife and daughters therefore find it unthinkable that Iman could be so dedicated to his work—work they see as immoral—that he’d choose to believe the regime over them. Viewers may struggle to accept this too, especially more than an hour into the film; scenes of Iman taking them to an interrogator, ordering them to confess to stealing his gun on camera, and locking them into separate rooms can be especially uncomfortable to watch.

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By the time Iman starts chasing his wife and daughters around an abandoned village while brandishing a gun, his behavior is no longer surprising. The film’s tonal shift, however, caught me off guard. The pursuit sequence seems preposterous at first; it resembles a Hollywood Western about a bounty hunter stalking his prize, not the intimate family drama that was playing out only a few scenes earlier. Yet the change helps Sacred Fig establish Iman as the family’s personal demon, someone beyond saving. The staging—characters dart into hiding spots and leap across rooftops—conveys just how menacing Iman has become, and just how terrified the women are of someone they thought they knew. Rasoulof then ends the film with more footage of the 2022 protests. These clips stand in sharp contrast with the heightened moments that came right before them, capturing the surreality of the country’s turmoil. The emotional reality of living in Iran while holding views that oppose the state, the movie suggests, is anxiety-inducing—almost unfathomably so for those who have never dealt with such restrictions.

Iman is a good man, but even a good man can be hopelessly corrupted. He believes that his country has his best interests at heart and that his actions are actually protecting those around him. His family’s resistance just intensifies his determination to make them obey him, even at the expense of their affection. Yet by denying them their humanity and the opportunity to develop their own beliefs, he becomes a stark representation of the insecurity and fear that fortifies the regime he serves. “In my own home, I don’t feel safe,” Iman complains after he misplaces his gun. He’s not the only one.