There is a point as the foreground story of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” returns when, in 1986, the mullahs of a remote Iranian village tell French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam (James Caviezel) that they can’t let him go because “You are a journalist, you are a writer!” Fortunately the storyteller Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) has a spare cassette, and his just-fixed car barely cranks its engine.
Most of the movie is a horrific backstory of how Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is falsely accused of infidelity by a brutal husband after an arranged marriage, fed to the town rumor mill, tried, and, in a horrific scene lasting almost half an hour, stoned to death, one of the most brutal ravages I have ever witnessed on film. And, of course, the villager want to keep it secret.
The film does, of course, dramatize the tribal and patriarchal values of radical Islam (whether Shiite or Sunni doesn’t really matter). The men feel that they protect their families from a brutal outside world, so their families owe them absolute “loyalty.” That’s the way it is in their world.
The film is distributed by Roadside Attractions and was produced by Mpower, and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (himself American). It is shot in full 2.35:1 and contains breathtaking middle eastern mountain scenery (the credits don’t specify exactly in what country it was filmed). It played to a fair crowd on Sunday night at an AMC in Arlington VA.
0 comments:
Post a Comment