The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009)

Fresh and Exciting

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The movie starts out with Soraya M. already dead. Her aunt is cleansing her bones in the river for burial. A stranger comes to town who is a French Journalist who speaks Arabic. He is desperate to get out of Iran under the recent takeover of the Ayatollah. His car has broken down and a woman , Zahra, Soraya's aunt, confronts when with a graphic tale on how the men of the village misused Sharia law to stone Soraya M. to death. She even was able to tell him about things that happened in private conversations in which she wasn't present. (Makes for a better drama by filling in those gaps.) Soraya is wrongfully accused of adultery by her husband who coerces another man to be his witness.Several things are brought out in this movie. One is that women lived better under the Shah dictatorship than Sharia law. The elders of the community have invoked Sharia law because it appears to be the wish of the Ayatollah and Allah, and it is convenient for them. The movie is an emotional roller coaster. The stoning scene is graphic and is done that way for a reason: to show you how barbaric it is. It is an emotional tear jerker that will leave you both angry and sad. English subtitles.

Powerful, moving, anger-inducing indictment on mob rule, injustice, modern-day barbarism and religious zealotry and manipulation. The ending might be obvious from the title, but the back story is incredibly powerful. The event itself is brutally graphic, and demonstrates the effect of the irrational behaviour that came before it.Based on a true story, the plot is solid, as is the direction. The performances by the leads - Shohreh Aghdashloo and Mozhan Marno - are excellent.A must-see, but not for the faint-hearted.

An Iranian journalist based overseas stumbles upon a horrific tale of fear, ignorance and mob brutality when his car breaks down in a remote village.Taking this tale, based on a true story, and transferring it to screen throws up a number of challenges. Stoning people to death is barbaric and there is no justification for it. But it happens, and for a reason, and the film admirably sets out to show why. It avoids the trap of being an educational film, explaining in exposition the sociocultural reasons for such events, by staying focused on Soraya's plight and the inexorable unfolding of small episodes that lead to the stoning. There are, thankfully, no ironic or sub-textual references to Iran, patriarchy or Sharia law made. Another aspect of this approach is the Hollywood characterisation and plotting. The is unsurprising given the film school the director graduated from, but it takes this viscerally repellent event and somehow puts a genre stamp on it. This is most glaringly revealed in the journalist's action-movie style escape from the village, including a piece of trickery with a tape that invites us to high-five with the fleeing journalist, a tone that is out of place since we have just spent quarter of an hour watching a woman being stoned by her friends, neighbours, and family. The characterisation works in the sense that it is familiar - the amoral man of God, the dithering village leader, the corrupt and forceful husband, the compromised village idiot - but also jars, in that these characters are archetypes of Hollywood drama fiction, and as enjoyable and successful as they are in such an arena, they seem like interlopers here. Perhaps I wanted the film to feel more documentary like, or take an unusual approach such as Hunger did to the Bobby Sands story. I cannot articulate the engagement with this topic that I wanted to see, I just feel this wasn't it.Acting is excellent, especially Shohreh Aghdashloo as Zahra, Mozhan Marnò as Soraya M., and a chilling Navid Negahban as instigator husband Ali. I suspect the film will survive more in the university classrooms of Culture Studies departments than the pantheons of cinema, but it is a film worth watching nonetheless.

almost the worst movie I've seen in ages! not talking about the poor atmosphere and poor acting which are ridiculously trying to show black/white characters,but also this movie lacks reason. as a lawyer who has master degree in criminal law,I should say real stoning has almost no similarity with what we see in this movie.of course I'm against this humiliating punishment,but it doesn't mean I approve all of the lies in this movie about Islamic rules. just as a little example,in the movie it's said Soraya should bring 4 witnesses in order to prove her innocence!blah blah!in Iran like any other place I know,it's to the complainant (and in criminal cases the court also) to prove somebody's guiltiness. just an advice to the director:just research before making a movie about a subject.that's what every professional director does.refer to article 63 to 97 of the Islamic punishment code of Iran.it's even available online! the weakness points of this movie are almost uncountable!did you notice all of the men are bad?you can't at least find one good man there.on the other hand Soraya is flawless in this ugly world and Zahra(Shohreh Aghdashloo who has played her weakest role ever) is the brave woman who's trying to help her.what's the point of all of these feminism? I almost forgot to say:in some scenes I couldn't stop laughing when I heard Soraya speaking Persian with English accent about the very obvious goals of the movie which were supposed to impress the audience!