Holy Spider (2022)
Country: DK/GER/FR/SV/JOR/IT
Technical: col/2.39:1 118m
Director: Ali Abbasi
Cast: Mehdi Bajestani, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, Arash Ashtiani
Synopsis:
Around the turn of the millennium, a woman journalist journeys from the capital to the holy Iranian city of Mashhad to find out why a dozen prostitutes have been murdered, each in exactly the same circumstances, and the police have achieved nothing.
Review:
A story of an extremely brave woman, and of course a film that could not have been made in Iran but is equally bold in its implications: that women are viewed as vessels of sin, taken advantage of if unmarried, but damned if they use their sex because they are destitute; a double standard encapsulated in the scene where the police inspector attempts to seduce the protagonist in her hotel room. More disturbing, perhaps, is the film's conclusion: justice has been done, but the next generation demonstrates that nothing has been learnt. An explosive film, then, though some may find the repetitive murder sequences hard to endure.
Country: DK/GER/FR/SV/JOR/IT
Technical: col/2.39:1 118m
Director: Ali Abbasi
Cast: Mehdi Bajestani, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, Arash Ashtiani
Synopsis:
Around the turn of the millennium, a woman journalist journeys from the capital to the holy Iranian city of Mashhad to find out why a dozen prostitutes have been murdered, each in exactly the same circumstances, and the police have achieved nothing.
Review:
A story of an extremely brave woman, and of course a film that could not have been made in Iran but is equally bold in its implications: that women are viewed as vessels of sin, taken advantage of if unmarried, but damned if they use their sex because they are destitute; a double standard encapsulated in the scene where the police inspector attempts to seduce the protagonist in her hotel room. More disturbing, perhaps, is the film's conclusion: justice has been done, but the next generation demonstrates that nothing has been learnt. An explosive film, then, though some may find the repetitive murder sequences hard to endure.
Country: DK/GER/FR/SV/JOR/IT
Technical: col/2.39:1 118m
Director: Ali Abbasi
Cast: Mehdi Bajestani, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, Arash Ashtiani
Synopsis:
Around the turn of the millennium, a woman journalist journeys from the capital to the holy Iranian city of Mashhad to find out why a dozen prostitutes have been murdered, each in exactly the same circumstances, and the police have achieved nothing.
Review:
A story of an extremely brave woman, and of course a film that could not have been made in Iran but is equally bold in its implications: that women are viewed as vessels of sin, taken advantage of if unmarried, but damned if they use their sex because they are destitute; a double standard encapsulated in the scene where the police inspector attempts to seduce the protagonist in her hotel room. More disturbing, perhaps, is the film's conclusion: justice has been done, but the next generation demonstrates that nothing has been learnt. An explosive film, then, though some may find the repetitive murder sequences hard to endure.