We owe a great deal to art and artists in helping us glimpse into places that have been closed off in the name of religion, tradition, culture, or whatever leading men deem suitable for their cover-ups on crimes against humanity and human rights.
Nearly a decade ago, Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel, The Kite Runner, broke our hearts and took us to the underbelly of Afghanistan’s recent history. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, and the subsequent animated adaptation, was a delightful combination of the chilling and the funny in shedding light on women’s position in Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Iranian-American director Cyrus Nowrasteh’s The Stoning of Sorayah M. stands closer to The Kite Runner than Persepolis in its brutal depiction of humanity doing bad in the name of Islam in the late 20th century.
The film begins with Emmy-winning (House of Saddam) and Oscar-nominated (House of Sand and Fog) Iranian-American actress Shohreh Agdashloo’s Zahra walking toward a river before sunrise. She washes more than a few bones and buries them. It’s no mystery whose bones they are from the name of the movie.
The Stoning of Soraya M. was adapted from the 1994 book of French-Iranian journalist Feriodune Sahebjam of the same name, which was based on a true story.
It’s the 1980s, soon after the Iranian Revolution. James Caviezel plays a journalist whose car breaks down near a remote village in Iran. As he waits for his car to be fixed in the village, Zahra gets him to listen “how the devil paid a visit” to the village just the night before. We see Caviezel one more time in the end as Zahra completes her account of the events leading to the stoning of Soraya.
Dark Ages in neighboring countries
Zahra’s story goes like this: Soraya’s husband is a monster of a man, the kind of movie villain we haven’t seen for a long time. Ali (Navid Negahban) is the misogynist of the worst kind: he beats his wife, he disregards his daughters, pampers his sons and has plans to marry a 14-year-old girl. He doesn’t want to even contemplate a divorce because he would have to pay off his wife and two daughters.
Ali has other plans in store. If he can prove that his wife has committed adultery (even if it has no basis in reality), she will be condemned to stoning under sharia. We learn more about the villagers, especially the two men in power, the mayor and the mullah. As Sorayah’s grave is dug with conspiracies, lies, and mere nonchalance, Zahrah becomes the only person fighting for justice and the life of an innocent woman.
Official reports in Iran and many other countries deny the practice of ‘rajm,’ the stoning of the adulterer to death. But it is also a known fact that it is still put into practice in many places.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is quite disturbing both with its story and its visuals, especially the never-ending scene of stoning towards the end. Of course, such a subject matter doesn’t need any toning down, and the more brutal it is the more impact it will have on the viewers.
One major problem with the film, however, is that it tends to establish Soraya’s story as an isolated event, and sets out to paint some monstrous villains and evil men responsible for the horrible death of an innocent and very likeable woman. The film might have had more of an impact if she wasn’t necessarily innocent – in fact, she could very well have been living her life as the men in the village were. And the men, they could have been any ones of millions who aren’t necessarily evil, but have just found subjugating women for centuries very convenient for their own good. Still, The Stoning of Soraya will leave you helpless and angry at the Dark Age mentality that continues in today’s world – a mentality still seen in this country and neighboring ones.
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