It is either the best moment or the worst for the release of “The Stoning of Soraya M.”
The American-produced drama about an honorable woman’s death at the hands of religious scoundrels in an Iranian village arrives as powerful images and gripping reports in the wake of Iran’s contested election continue to make their way around the globe.
If you are a savvy marketeer, you might view this convergence as opportune. If you are a skeptical movie critic, the relationship of roiling reality to a film crafted for maximum melodrama is an uneasy one.
Sure reviewers like arguing for the vitality of film. But to paraphrase Alain Resnais, who made one of the definitive films about the Holocaust, the more dramatic the material, the more restrained the approach ought to be.
It’s advice the husband-wife, director-writing team of Cyrus and Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh could have used in adapting French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1990 book based on the 1986 stoning of a woman in a village.
Shohreh Aghdashloo plays Soraya’s aunt Zahra. The incomparable, smoky-voiced Iranian-born actor was nominated for her touching work in 2003’s “House of Sand and Fog.”
An outspoken critic of the village rascals and idiots, Zahra is barely tolerated by the mayor (a former suitor) and the Sheik Hassan, a former criminal turned cleric.
When a war correspondent (Jim Caviezel) is waylaid in the dusty, suspicious hamlet, Zahra seizes the opportunity to recount her niece’s story. It unfolds in flashback.
Soraya’s husband, Ali, a prison guard, wants to divorce his faithful wife in order to marry the 14-year-old daughter of an inmate. She refuses for the sake of their children, her sons but also her daughters.
Ali, played with smarm by Navid Negahban, conspires with the local mullah Hassan to be rid of her. Their plans go from lothario to lethal.
“The Stoning of Soraya M.” is not a bad film, exactly. Even hampered with wincing speeches, Aghdashloo single-handedly won’t allow it to be.
It is, however, a bullying one. The filmmakers don’t trust audiences to be riled by the injustice. So the village resembles a Middle Eastern Stepford, where all the men conspire to varying degrees. Even the exception, a kindly mechanic whose wife passes away, can’t summon the gumption to break the rules.
The Kafkaesque world that Soraya (Mozhan Marno) finds herself trapped in speaks, of course, to systemic misogyny. But Mozhan Morno’s performance has a monotone quality that renders her a cipher, a virtuous victim.
The aesthetic, which mixes Greek tragedy with American parables of heroism like “High Noon” and “The Ox-bow Incident,” isn’t accidental, just wrongheaded.
A few days after the elections in Iran, the Israel Project sent an e-mail alerting recipients to the film with the header “Timely Movie About Iran.”
The day of the Iranian election, publicists for the film delivered a woven basket containing a preview DVD, a copy of Sahebjam’s book and three fist-size stones. Had the story been about lynching, would they have included a length of rope? I think not.
If “The Stoning of Soraya” were even a good film, this err in judgment wouldn’t rankle quite so much. The nudges wouldn’t be necessary.
The story would speak for itself. And no one involved would have to defend its brutal, graphic execution.
Sometimes events really outpace art, providing images that are better able to effect change. Consider the cellphone footage of Neda Agha Soltan sprawled on the street after being shot. Or less wrenching, the image of a woman walking down a street in Tehran, her face blurred, her hands on her hips, her head uncovered.
If you asked this film critic which images you should spend time grappling with, I’d be humbled to say, there’s no contest.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
“THE STONING OF SORAYA M.”
R for a disturbing sequence of cruel and brutal violence, and brief, strong language. 1 hour, 56 minutes. Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh; written by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh; from the book by Freidoune Sahebjam; photography by Joel Ransom; starring Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marno, Navid Negahban, David Diann, Ali Pourtash and Jim Caviezel. Opens today at area theaters.
