The Stoning of Soraya M (MA). Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh. Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò, James Caviezel, Navid Negahban, Ali Pourtash, David Diaan, Parviz Sayyad. Running time: 114 minutes
First published in Eureka Street on 27 May 2010.
There is a story in the Christian Gospel in which Jesus intercedes on behalf of a woman who has been sentenced to death by stoning. The woman's crime is that she has been 'caught in adultery', although we are given no details as to the circumstances.
The story makes the universal point that no person is sinless — 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,' Jesus famously declares, and there are no takers. But a more pertinent interpretation is that he is correcting a specific injustice that has resulted from acute social gender inequality. The woman's guilt, or lack thereof, is secondary: as a woman she is powerless, and Jesus' words and actions empower her.
In The Stoning of Soraya M we see another such inequality at play, in an (almost) modern-day provincial Iranian setting. But unlike the Gospel story, there is no saviour present who is willing or able to intercede and prevent the injustice from taking place.
It is rare that a film causes seasoned critics to weep, but The Stoning of Soraya M is such a film. It is essentially one long setup for its violent climax, which would make for tedious viewing, if not for the omen of the film's title, and the abiding sense of horror at the mundane circumstances from which the threatened climax eventually arises. We hope and pray that the inevitable will be diverted. But The Stoning of Soraya M is relentless and, when the end does come, we find ourselves feeling as helpless as the victim buried chest-deep in the sand. Her experience becomes ours. No wonder we weep.
Precocious widow Zahra (Aghdashloo) is both storyteller and the film's moral centre. She relates her bleak tale to a travelling journalist (Caviezel, the actor who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, here reduced from saviour to witness). Her niece Soraya, Zahra tells him, has fallen victim to the machinations of her brutish husband.
We see the story in flashback. The villainous Ali (Negahban) wants to divorce Soraya (Marnò) so he can marry a 14-year-old girl. But Soraya, fearing this abusive man yet certain he will not support her and their daughters if she allows him to leave,