The Stoning of Soroya M, a film review
The Stoning of Soraya M
Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh
Written by Cyrus Nowrasteh and Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh
Mpower Pictures, 2009. 116 minutes
In Farsi, English, and French
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Stoning is bad, but not because of the stones
Communities have sentenced offenders to stoning for several thousand years. The Egyptians and ancient Greeks utilized the punishment, and stoning appears in the texts of the major monotheistic religions. Stoning was, in short, a typical feature of the first Western civilizations. Strange that today stoning is not seen as civilized but barbaric — the United Nations has condemned stoning as a form of torture. Nonetheless, the practice continues around the world, although stoning has been most frequently noted in Islamic cultures adhering to Sharia law.
What is stoning?
The most memorable on-screen stoning — up to now — may be found in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). In that scene John Cleese hilariously tries to organize the stoning of a criminal by a group of women disguised as men, only to be stoned to death himself. But real stoning is much worse. A typical stoning requires the victim to be buried up to the waist so as to restrict movement. The executioners then hurl stones from behind a line until the victim perishes.
Death by stoning can occur in a few ways. A stone may cause fatal trauma to the brain or sever an important vessel in the thoracic area surrounding the heart. The worst and most painful cause of death happens when the stones only pelt the arms and legs, causing internal bleeding that leads to an excruciating death. Some victims die from fear alone.
What is barbarous
But while the United Nations and other human rights groups condemn stoning, they are merely addressing the symptom of a larger affliction. Death by hanging, execution by the electric chair, and even lethal injection may be considered equally painful. Indeed — and I recognize I’m on shaky ground here — it is possible to argue that stoning at least forces individuals in the community to inflict their own punishment, rather than delegate the task to a masked executioner and absolve themselves of the need to confront the import of their judgments. Some groups such as Human Rights Watch claim that the problem with stoning is not the practice itself but capital punishment in general. (This is a separate discussion for another time.)
The real problem with stoning as it is practiced today is the lack of due process. Death by stoning occurs without providing the victim with an opportunity for a fair trial, or to confront witnesses. And the fact that stoning is most often practiced against women highlights the unfairness of the practice. Due process stems from the Abrahamic principle, namely: “I divide, you choose.” The point is that procedures can instill fairness into justice, such that the force of the community cannot be arbitrarily wielded against an innocent victim. Stoning should stop because it is vulnerable to mob justice. The torturous element and horrific pain reflect the lack of fairness in the process. When you are stoned to death, you are doubly killed, first by injustice, second by trauma.
The Stoning of Soraya M
In The Stoning of Soraya M, a young French-Iranian journalist traveling to the Iranian border is forced to repair his car in a secluded mountain hamlet. It is the early 1980s, and the Shah’s regime has fallen just a few years before. Stricter, more conservative interpretations of Sharia law are emerging. As the journalist (Jim Caviezel) haggles with a mechanic, he is accosted by a mullah and the town’s mayor, who invite him to tea. A mysterious, crazed woman named Zahra (Shorhreh Aghdashloo) warns him not to consort with the men, and the journalist politely declines the invitation. The woman then convinces the journalist to tape record the sordid tale of the event that happened the day before his arrival.
There is an inexorability to The Stoning, contained in the title, that drives this film forward. You know a stoning is coming, that the victim will be named Soraya, and the title suggests that this will be a story of prolonged suffering. I will admit that this did not attract me, as I found The Passion of the Christ (2004), an adaptation of a medieval play about the death of Jesus Christ, both boring and indulgent. The fact that the same financial backers of The Passion were also involved in The Stoning also discouraged me.
How wonderful to discover, then, that The Stoning is an artfully crafted, beautiful piece of filmmaking. This film contains everything that The Passion of the Christ did not: a smoothly told narrative, a moving pastoral setting, a complex portrait of village life, and riveting performances by accomplished actors.
Zahra’s tale centers upon the unhappy marriage of her niece Soraya (Mozhan Marn), a mother of four children, to an abusive prison guard named Ali (Navid Negahban). While Soraya cooks and cleans with her daughters, Ali spoonfeeds his young sons spiteful chauvinism, spending his hours away from home having an affair with the 14 year old daughter of one of his prison wards. Soon Ali decides that he wishes to remarry, and he will do anything to rid himself of his ungrateful wife. He then conspires with the local mullah, a former criminal, and bullies the community into believing that his wife has committed adultery. His ultimate goal is nothing less than to have his own wife stoned to death.
The bucolic setting of the mountain village, the location of which the filmmakers have wisely withheld, balances the impending violence. After beatings by her husband, Soraya picnics with her daughters in the idyllic pastures. The machinations of the villagers are offset by sweeping mountain vistas, all tinged in gold.
The acting, too, mitigates the violence. The auto mechanic Hashem (Parviz Sayyad) can jerk tears with an anguished glance, and Soraya’s abusive husband Ali threatens to burst from the screen and throttle you in the theatre at any moment. His manipulation of Sharia law to serve his own ends is nothing short of villainous.
But the person who steals the screen is Zahra. Shorhreh Aghdashloo was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The House of Sand and Fog (2003), and another will be forthcoming for this performance. The courage of the character Zahra to stand up against the male villagers increases Aghdashloo’s appeal, but there is more to it than that. Although Zahra is meant to portray an old woman — her husky, nicotine scratched voice suggests this — Aghdashloo remains physically stunning and dominates each scene with her elegance. She embodies the matriarchs of days past and to come. And in the end, Zahra is the only person who can grant purpose to Soraya’s death.
The Stoning is so compelling that the eponymous event need not come at all; the portrayal of the village renders the film complete enough without the stoning. When the stoning comes, it is masterfully done. The filmmakers spent two months planning the scene, drawing upon CGI, puppetry, and make-up, and it shows. The stoning punctuates a convincing argument against chauvinistic interpretations of Sharia law as it is practiced in Soraya’s village. The violence is never glorified, only revealed with brutal austerity. It is small wonder that Iranian-American actress Mozhan Marn suffered from nightmares after filming the scene again and again.
The Real Story
That The Stoning is based on a true story makes it matter that much more. In real life, the story of Soraya was discovered by Freidoune Sahebjan, a French-Iranian journalist who met Zahra and shared her story with the world. The book The Stoning of Soraya M. (1994) quickly became a bestseller in France. Certain aspects of the real story were downplayed in the movie. In fact, the filmmakers decided that the real men of the village were too evil to be believable, so they inserted more nuance into the characters.
Some quips
If I have a few quips, they relate to a few small stylistic choices. Soraya’s last gasps too closely resembled the ending of The Gladiator (2000) for me to find them moving, especially because I found the death scene of that sword-and-sandal movie to be better done. I also found the journalist’s flight from the village to be slightly melodramatic, given how slowly his jalopy seemed to drive.
The most bizarre part of the film, which occurs during the stoning, invites skepticism but actually happened in real life. I will not spoil it for you — just watch the film.
An End to Stoning
When we trample women’s rights underfoot and allow justice to cater to the mob, the roughly 1,000 women killed by stoning in the past 15 years are the sad testimony. The Stoning of Soraya M. reminds us of the travesty that can occur in the face of rampant chauvinism and a lack of due process.
–Deji Olukotun
Check out the campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women here.
Special thanks to my father for help with the medical effects of stoning.
