| Washington Report Archives (2006-2010) - 2009 July |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2009, pages 56-57
Music & Arts
“Soraya M.” Opens Nationally
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PARIS-BASED Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s The Stoning of Soraya M. was an international bestseller in 1994. It has taken all this time for the tragic execution of an unjustly accused woman in the newly fundamentalist, post-Revolutionary Iran to come to the big screen in a major production.
This is not a Muslim-bashing film about the honor killing of women, but rather an opus asking the universal question: Who of us will dare to take a stand against mob rule?
The film opens as the vehicle of journalist Sahebjam (Jim Caviezel of “The Passion of Christ”) begins to break down, and he coasts into a garage in a remote mountainous Iranian village.
As he waits for the mechanic to make repairs, an Iranian woman surreptiously hands him a note. Later, the same woman, Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo of “House of Sand and Fog”), beckons the journalist to come into her courtyard.
Over tea, the vengeful Zahra tells the chilling story of how her niece Soraya (Mozhan Marno) was stoned to death only the day before, after being falsely accused of infidelity.
Scenes leading up to and during the stoning were too graphic for this reviewer, but the cruelty of otherwise harmless peasants when caught up in mob hysteria is chilling. Director Cyrus Nowrasteh and his fellow screenwriter wife, Betsy Griffen Nowrasteh, secured the film rights from author Sahebjam by agreeing to his conditions that the film be made in Farsi starring mainly Iranian actors, and that it be directed by someone of Iranian heritage.
Roadside Attractions and Mpower Pictures will open “The Stoning of Soraya M.” on June 26 in New York and Los Angeles, and other key markets with a national rollout to follow.
—Pat McDonnell Twair
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All too many communities in the U.S., including my own, did not make this film available for showing to the general public. I knew the movie was to be released but have never had the opportunity to see it. When movies of quality but disturbing content are released in the U.S., most theaters do not show them, preferring to offer viewers inane comedies or violent fantasies instead. No food for thought in most American cinemas.