Reviewed: ‘Seed of the Sacred Fig,’ ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ and ‘Room Next Door’ in theaters
‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ (2024)
It’s amazing, given how Draconian the Iranian government has been about censorship and control over its own narrative, that the voices of filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi persist. Both have been arrested and spent time in jail because they make films critical of the oppressive regime. These films are usually shot and edited secretly and often bootlegged out of the country to gain distribution in the West. Panahi struck the first blow with the sublime and frightening “The Circle” (2000), which detailed the systemic imprisonment of women for morality violations that most people in a free state would consider little more than jaywalking. Rasoulof goes further with “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” crafting a domestic gender rift against the backdrop of the real-life death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 after being taken into custody for a hijab violation. The event galvanized the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and led to protests in the streets. In the home of Iman (Missagh Zareh), he and his wife Najmeh (Sohelia Golestani) and teenage daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) come at the headline event differently. Iman, who works for the state judicial department and reviews and signs execution orders, believes the theocracy’s line that Amin died of a stroke; his wife and daughters, like all those protesting, believe the death was the result of abuse and torture. Iman has a gun as part of his position, and as tension in the house rises, the firearm goes missing. Ultimately the action leaves the confines of the family’s apartment and the distrust threatens to turn violent. Just before the film played Cannes, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison with a flogging and fled the country, another reflection of a theocratic patriarchy holding authoritarian reins chokingly tight.
‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ (2024)
A perfect companion to RaMell Ross’ superb “Nickel Boys,” as both deal with a grotesquely unjust Black experience on the cusp of the civil rights movement. “Nickel Boys” is a microcosm of racial injustice, whereas “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” looks globally. The doc by Johan Grimonprez details the dubious events surrounding the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, inaugural leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo – just liberated from Belgium and quickly becoming a Cold War conflict because its rich uranium deposits were coveted by the United States and Soviet Union for use in nukes. It is astounding to see archival footage of the smooth and charismatic Malcom X and an animated Nikita Khrushchev making the same condemnations at the U.N. of the West for its colonialism and denial of rights to Black people. Insert into the mix Louis Armstrong as a Trojan horse cultural ambassador to the Congolese while Eisenhower, the CIA and Belgian operatives scheme against Lumumba in ways troublesome, embarrassing and downright heinous out of fear the nation (and its uranium) would fall into Soviet hands. Grimonprez, employing frenetic freestyle editing, homes in on socially active jazz greats of the time – among them Nina Simone, doing her amazing “Sinnerman,” Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach bringing the beat and emotional heat and Dizzy Gillespie – as well as X and Maya Angelou (she, Lincoln and Roach stormed the U.N. in the wake of Lumumba’s death) to fill the frame with sound and voice. The frequent shards of quotes he flashes onscreen are stunningly effective. Grimonprez has tapped into an incredible intersection of time, place and players that he turns into an immersive experience that entertains and informs unlike any Wikipedia page or history book.
‘The Room Next Door’ (2024)
Iconic Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (“Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) makes his first English-language film, and with the double-barrel casting of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore on paper it seems like a can’t-miss collaboration. While it definitely hits, it’s not the boom you’d expect from such a loaded lot. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through,” “Room Next Door” is a contemplation on mortality – something that seems to be on Almodóvar’s mind these days given this, “Parallel Mothers” (2021) and most personally, “Pain and Glory” (2018). Novelist Ingrid (Moore) and war correspondent Martha (Swinton sporting a neat crop top), Manhattanites but distant for years, reunite because Martha is terminally ill and wants Ingrid to spend the end days with her in a quaint VRBO upstate. The performers are all in, yet the characters somehow feel shallow and contrived and the dialogue too meted, as if were a stage play. It’s gorgeous and affecting, but ephemeral and wispy.
For What it's Worth 