“The story starts off slowly and builds to a brutal and
bloody ending that I did not expect.” So commented “Jenny-645” on
imdb.com regarding The Stoning of
Soraya M., the most bracing collusion of moralization and torture
porn since The Passion of the Christ.
Arguably even more egregious than Mel Gibson’s flick about Jesus,
it’s little wonder that one can’t help but be struck by the
similarities Soraya M. has with The Passion: The two
films share a producer in Stephen McEveety, and John Debney provided
music for both. And just as Gibson sent Catholics into paroxysms of
religious ecstasy with a vile re-creation of Jesus’ crucifixion in
Passion, so does Stoning‘s Cyrus Nowrasteh revel in the
incredulously vicious execution of an innocent woman.
To be clear, and to avoid the dumb surprise suffered by “Jenny-645”:
The key word in this film’s title is “stoning,” and all that occurs
prior to that orgiastic bloodbath merely serves to set the stage for
the thoroughly uncompromising depiction of the event. The film is based
on a true story, as first told in a book of the same name by Freidoune
Sahebjam (played by Passion Jesus, AKA James Caviezel), which
recounts an actual stoning that took place in a small Iranian village
in 1986.
Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) was a 35-year-old woman married to a
diabolical cretin who not only beat her and flagrantly ran with
prostitutes, but also concocted the false accusation of adultery that
led to her death sentence. Her life story, one of lifelong oppression
and molestation, is a jarring condemnation of the treatment of women
under radical Islam, a matter of no small concern. Likewise, the
barbarism of her death is an alarming call to arms against a practice
that goes on to this day. But in Stoning, all of this is treated
two-dimensionally, with sorely underdeveloped characters and a
shattering lack of nuance. All of the men here are thoroughly bad,
weak, and/or stupid. All of the women are good but trod upon, beautiful
and noble despite it all. (Except for the ugly one—she’s
bad.)
The simplistic, heavy-handed didacticism of the film’s first half is
a real detriment to its ostensible raison d’être, made all
the more suspect in light of the rapturously—almost
poetically—horrifying realism devoted to Soraya’s tragic end.
Only the most limited imaginations could require this relentessly
tedious scene to grasp the awfulness of death by stoning, but
Stoning can’t be accused of creating anything less than a
hyper-awareness of the inhumanity and injustice that continues to rage
in the most ignorant corners of civilization.
Dear Ms. Skinner,
Your blatant spewing of stolen phrases from a few other sorely misguided reviews concerning this bold, significant film leads me to wonder if you’ve actually seen “The Stoning of Soraya M.” yourself, or are you just jumping on the “bashing bandwagon”? Furthermore, you lost your credibility as a qualified movie critic in your very first sentence, quoting an unknown imdb.com frequenter. Also amateurish is your referral to one of the actresses in the film as “ugly”. That’s low. As for Iran being one of “the most ignorant corners of civilization”– your blind assessment could not be more inaccurate.
And I wonder if you’ve actually seen The Passion. Torture porn? Have you seen any other movies out recently? Passion pales against the violence of many films, films that people who hate Passion for reasons not related to the film itself actually love. Vile recreation? What was vile? If you actually read something about crucifictions you would know they are even worse than what Gibson depicted. The thousands of Jews who were crucified certainly knew that.
You know Lynn, if you’re really concerned about aesthetic politics, there are probably bigger fish to fry than a movie reviewer calling a woman ugly in a satirical context. The “inner corruption manifesting as outer corruption” conceit much older and much more prevalent in our society. I can guarantee you that most women in rural Iran (hell, and most folks in Portland for that matter) do not have flawless skin, lightly tussled hair and form fitting white robes. I thought Marjorie makes a strong case in five paragraphs why that’s sort of a problem for a film as “empathetic” as this one supposedly is.
And I see you also disagree with the statement that Iran is one of the “the most ignorant corners of civilization”. Fair enough, if it’s not an ignorant culture than I guess that makes it a culture that actively condones fucking stoning people to death. Iranian law certainly has. So bravo madam, thanks for setting us all straight.
The above comments have said almost all that I need to say, but allow me expand upon them a bit more.
Let me begin by asking what you’re really commenting on, Passion or Soraya? Clearly there is another agenda at work here. Perhaps you should exercise an ounce of professionalism and allow the film to stand on its own two feet.
Irregardless, your dismissal of the one actress as “the ugly one” is outright unbelievable (and arguably quite racist towards Persian women). To echo back to my prior comment, where is the professionalism? And, in regards to the story, you must not have been paying enough attention to realize that it’s based on a true story. This actually occurred. People were and are actually stoned to death. Allow me to ask of anyone reading this a simple question, had you been stoned to death and your story recreated by Hollywood, would you rather they leave your moment of demise to the “imagination” as Ms Skinner might suggest, or would you rather we see the true extent of the senseless act? I can assure you, society doesn’t need another news article or Hollywood glam piece to send them home to a good nights rest. We need to be incensed, exposed and understanding of the true nature of these acts.
Disregard this misdirected reviewer, she clearly does not understand the film. Having seen it I can vouch for its relevance, validity and prestige. I highly recommend it for activist and film-lover alike.
I saw the film. It was very good!