The first sign of distress was a “Special Makeup Effects Artist” acknowledgment in the opening credits. There will be blood.
One expects this type of indulgence from a Wes Craven film, not the fact-based tale of a 35-year-old Iranian woman who is falsely labeled an adulteress and slaughtered by her neighbors. Look beyond the subtitles and foreign locations and you’ll find my least loved genre: The “Set-‘em-up-to-Watch-‘em-Die.”
They all begin the same: Open on the aftermath of tragedy; “La Bamba” commences with Ritchie Valens’ fatal plane crash; Jodie Foster stumbles out of a bar after being sexually assaulted in “The Accused.” In this case Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) discovers the bones of her niece Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) the morning after her brutal murder. In each film we flash back several months earlier and spend the next 90 minutes waiting to see a vicious and/or violent death reenacted in its entire graphic splendor.
The true life story of Soraya M. comes complete with yet its own set of built-in generic conventions. A reporter’s (Jim Caviezel) car breaks down in a tiny Iranian village. While awaiting the mechanic’s verdict Zahra recounts the story of her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive brute ended tragically. You’ll know it’s time to dissolve into a flashback the moment we see a close up of Caviezel pressing the record button on his cassette player.
It’s easy to be flippant in light of the film’s shameless presentation of the facts. If there is an “Oprah Winfrey Show” in Riyadh this material would have provided a month’s worth of programming. This two-hour message picture is built around the blinding revelation that women worldwide deserve equal rights and should not be used for target practice. Anyone that does not know that before entering the theater belongs in the cell next to O.J.
The vast majority of the movie is the stuff Lifetime tele-dramas are made of, so let’s get right to the climactic rock consort. Of course there is the obligatory slow motion shot as Soraya approaches the stoning pit. Just before the first rock is pitched, a circus van, assuming the crowd has gathered for market day, pulls up. Hey! It’s like this whole ritual takes on a circus-like atmosphere. Now do you understand the need for this ridiculous Fellini-esque touch?
The stoning is as graphic as a George Romero zombie movie and with the exception of one fast motion shot and a couple of dummys, quite convincingly executed. The problem is more thought went into depicting the six minutes it took to kill her than anything that led up to the event.
The question remains, who in their right mind wants to fork over ten dollars to see this material? If nothing else, Roadside Pictures should have waited to release “Soraya M.” in September to start the Oscar buzz for Ms. Aghdashloo’s performance. The Academy is a sucker for this type of suffering. As for me, I exited the theater humming “Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35.”
“The Stoning of Soraya M.” is currently playing at Landmark’s Hillcrest Cinema.
Scott Marks was born and raised in some of the finest single screen movie theaters in Chicago. He moved to San Diego in 2000 and has never looked back. Scott authors the blog emulsioncompulsion.com and is co-host of KPBS-Radio’s Film Club of the Air. Please address any bouquets or brickbats to [email protected].
The Stoning of Soroya M
Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh
Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marnò and Jim Caviezel
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
