Film: The Stoning Of Soraya M.
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 116 mins
Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh
Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò, Jim Caviezel, Navid Negahban, David Diann
Genre: Crime/Drama
Studio: High Fliers
Format: DVD
Country: USA
In 1990 a book was published whose revelations about a shameful aspect of Iranian society radiated waves of shock throughout the entire world. The book, by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam was banned in Iran and condemned by Islamic Mullahs. The book became the basis for a major film in 2008 by an American director Cyrus Nowrasteh, who is of Persian descent. Released to critical acclaim, The Stoning Of Soraya M. tells the story of an Iranian woman at the receiving end of a small town’s corruption and religious brutality.
James Caviezel plays a journalist whose car breaks down outside a remote Iranian mountain village. While he leaves his car with the local mechanic to be fixed, he is taken aside by one of the village women, Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who implores him to record her story of the terrible events that have happened recently in the little village, and take it to the outside world.
Zahra recounts the story of her niece Soraya, married unhappily to Ali, an abusive and violent bully who seeks to divorce Soraya and marry a young girl he has met in the city. Soraya, fearful for her children’s wellbeing under the destitution that the divorce would cause, refuses, and so Ali cooks up a plan to end the marriage quickly and finally; to accuse her of adultery, a taboo punishable by execution in Islamic culture.
With the help of the corrupt village holy man played by Ali Pourtash, Ali spreads rumours of his wife’s infidelity, stirring up righteous hatred in the strongly religious community until the entire town is gradually turned against her. She is summarily tried and convicted of the crime, condemned to death and executed by a public stoning…
Contrary to what the title may suggest or the impact it has made, this is not a film about stoning. It is a film about misogyny, corruption, and a society which encourages paternalism, and the extent to which frightened men will go to reinforce this dogma - but it also happens to feature a stoning. The issue of stoning as a barbaric and immoral form of punishment is not what this film is primarily interested in, but rather how easily the strictly religious societies can be corrupted by evil men who see its rigorous dogmas as a means to their dastardly ends. And the film has more than its fair share of evil men.
One of the fundamental flaws in fact with The Stoning Of Soraya M. is how black-and-white things are, and how little credit Nowrasteh give us as an audience. We are walked hand in hand through the moralities, and left in no doubt how we are supposed to think and feel. It’s easy to root for the angelic, bullied Soraya, and to boo and hiss the demented Ali, the corrupt Mullah and the weak, manipulated Hashem. Things are nice and straightforward. But all this begs the question: what if Soraya had been guilty of the crime she is charged with? What if the men involved were not so outrageously evil, or possessed with a specific ulterior motive? What if it wasn’t so easy to pass a clear judgement on the rights and wrongs leading up to the event?
Nowrasteh certainly doesn’t bottle out when it comes to the horrors of the execution itself. The stoning is depicted in protracted, agonising detail, and full credit must be given for not shying away from the revolting reality of this barbaric practice. He masterfully builds up the tension in the scenes beforehand to unbearable levels, which undoubtedly owe something to the final scenes of Lars Von Trier’s Dancer In The Dark. There can be few more gut-churning sights committed to celluloid than a woman’s own sons gleefully collecting barrow-loads of stones alongside the other towns-children to be shortly used in her execution. It’s a shame that after masterfully building the tension for a good fifteen minutes, leading up to the stoning itself, Nowrasteh is guilty of a technical slipup, and fluffs it by giving Soraya a defiant speech to the crowd of baying, murderous townsfolk. Given the circumstances, it just doesn’t ring true, and the tension is sadly somewhat diffused.
The film is unashamedly religious. Several scenes are included of specifically religious significance, such as Soraya’s vision of heaven as she nears death, and the implication of divine intervention as the execution itself draws close. It gives an interesting colour to a film which is about the abuses of religion, and it’s as if Nowrasteh is keen to distinguish between God and the men who use him as an excuse to justify their own ends.
The Stoning Of Soraya M. has a lot going for it. It is frank, forthright, and in it Nowrasteh has managed to transfer a clear vision to the screen in a bold, uncompromising way. It’s a shame that he couldn’t have afforded the audience a little more credit and presented a story with less definite shades of black and white. We would inevitably have drawn the same conclusions about this horrifying form of torture and its corrupt perpetrators without having the morality spoon fed to us. LOZ
