By Ivan Osorio on 6.26.09 @ 6:08AM
The Stoning of Soraya M. opens today. It couldn't be
more timely.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a difficult film to watch,
but worth taking the time to do so. The film, which opens today,
depicts the stoning death of a young Iranian woman falsely
accused of adultery. It highlights the outrage that the barbaric
practice of stoning continues to occur anywhere, but at times
does more than that.
Based on the book of the same title by Iranian-French journalist
Freidoune Sahebjam, the film (directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh)
focuses on a specific event that illustrates the way in which a
repressive, illiberal society can close in on an individual,
ultimately taking away his or her very life and personhood. As in
this instance, death by stoning is often the result of religious
fanaticism, but the dehumanization and ultimate destruction of
the victim depicted in the film can also take place in
totalitarian systems devoted to some other allegedly higher ideal
-- the workers’ revolution, the Volk -- which rulers place above
the sanctity of the individual.
More specifically, the film brings welcome attention to the fact
that stoning still goes on in some countries (at the screening I
attended, viewers received a Human Rights Watch handout on it),
and places the atrocity in the context of the conditions that
make it possible. The series of circumstances and events that led
to this particular injustice constitute tools of repression upon
which tyrannical governments routinely rely -- intimidation of
witnesses, suborning of false testimony, and dehumanization of
the victim. In essence, Soraya is subjected to a show trial -- at
which she is not even allowed to be present -- where she is
turned into a legal non-person.
If that sounds Stalinist, it should. As in Stalinist Russia,
obedience to some greater ideal becomes a tool for ruthless men
to manipulate -- and even destroy -- others in the process of
getting their way. The series of events that lead to Soraya’s
death are set in motion by her husband Ali, who has tired of her
and wants to marry a younger woman. When she refuses to grant him
a divorce on his terms, he decides to get rid of her by a false
charge of adultery, based on a series of lies, half-truths, and
testimony from a threatened witness, which leads to sentence of
death by stoning. Ali gets rid of an inconvenient spouse the same
way that tyrants routinely dispatch political opponents.
That the events depicted occurred in Iran make the film
unexpectedly timely, given the events there in recent days,
especially because many of the marchers against the regime are
women, and the murder of one young woman has become a rallying
cry for Iranian reformers. From its outset, the film lays out
women’s lack of rights in a fundamentalist theocracy at the core
of the problem.
The story is told to Sahebjam (played by Jim Caviezel) by Zahra,
Soraya’s aunt (Shoreh Aghdashloo). When Sahebjam’s car breaks
down in their town of Kupayeh, Zahra notices that he is carrying
a cassette recorder. When she learns that he is a journalist, she
seeks him out to tell the story of Soraya’s ritual murder.
Recognizing how little weight her words would carry where she
lives, she tells him, “Then take my voice with you!”
On the streets in Tehran and all over Iran, women as well as men
are trying to find their voices against a regime they neither
trust nor respect. And yes, those events give The Stoning of
Soraya M. special saliency. But it is powerful enough on its
own.
topics:
Iran, Stalinism, Totaliltarianism
