This interview with “Holy Spider” director Ali Abbasi originally appeared in the International Film edition of awards magazine TheWrap.
Ali Abbasi would like to make one thing clear: “Holy Spider” is not a true crime movie. Although the story is based on the horrifying true case of Saeed Hanaei, who murdered 16 sex workers in the Iranian city of Mashhad in 2000-2001, claiming he was doing God’s work to eradicate sinful women, Abbasi was not interested. in making a serial killer. movie. He wanted to make a crime novel that would explore a “serial killer society” in which a devoutly religious man living in one of Iran’s holiest cities would admit to heinous crimes and be hailed as a hero by a sizable section of the public. population. When we spoke to Abbasid, who was born in Iran but now lives in Denmark, the women’s rights protests that broke out in September after a young woman died in police custody were still raging across her home country. (But the morality police had not yet been abolished.)
How does it feel to talk about your film, in which the issue of entrenched misogyny is central, as people demonstrate across Iran in reaction to the death of Mahsa Amini? (Amini died while being held by the morality police for wearing an “inappropriate” hijab.)
The magnitude of what is happening in Iran is so great that sometimes I forget about the film. Since all this started, I feel like (the movie is) part of something bigger. And if I can somehow raise awareness about (the protests) by talking about my film, if I can tweet, if I can, you know, throw my shoes at the wall of the Iranian embassy, whatever, I do it. This is not something we were expecting, it goes without saying, but I think it’s interesting how the context of the film has changed, because from the beginning I was interested in film noir’s treatment of some of these things in Iranian society. And I think some of the conversation (about “Holy Spider”) has changed because some of the same people were thinking, Oh, this is a misogynistic movie and it itself perpetuates violence because it’s so interested in seeing how women are killed. (Some reviews have made this claim.) With what’s happening in Iran and seeing what’s happening on the streets, they understand the context and maybe they better understand what we’re looking for.
crime scenes are brutal. They are so realistic that I had to look away. Why did you choose to shoot them this way?
This is something I’m very adamant about: I don’t feel like I have a moral obligation to be “tasteful” about things because this is my subjective interpretation of (the case). And this is the expression that, cinematically, interests me: the explicit. My theory about movies is that you either show or you don’t show. Intermediate doesn’t work for me. The poetic, metaphorical, does not work for me. There was also something else at stake, which is to break this wall of censorship: the way in which, for almost half a century, the Islamic Republic has represented life in Iran, especially women’s lives, with women sleeping with headscarves on their heads. head and clothes on, and being wrapped in, like, 10 meters of cloth. They have no physicality, there is no sexuality, there is no sensuality. You don’t have a feeling of a body for these people. I felt it was important to break away from that and be concrete and No metaphorical, and returns this physicality to the female characters.
The Iranian government is not a fan of his film, to put it mildly. When she debuted at Cannes (where star Zar Amir Ebrahimi won best actress), they condemned it.
We get a lot of heat from Iran. They were, like, comparing us to Salman Rushdie and (making) threats, especially Zar Amir Ebrahmi, who is more of a public person. (On social media), he receives death threats every day. We kill you and your dog and all that. (“Holy Spider”) has not come out (out there). However, I tried to take the plunge in Iran. I went and spoke with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, as it is called. And I think that actually, for the first and only time in my life, and hopefully the last time, I was prepared to make a compromise and remove some of the things that they would consider explicit in exchange for being able to film. Mashhad and have the authenticity. And that, of course, didn’t work.
This story has been out for 20 years. It’s been reported many, many times, mentioned many times, there’s a documentary, there’s even a feature film on this, which was released a few years ago in Iran. I think the difference between all those things and our movie is not in the narration. It’s not about the details or even explicit or not. I think it’s all about the tone. I made up my mind not to have respect for these people (in power), not to take Iranian censorship seriously, not to dialogue with them. I think they feel this disrespect and I think that’s what really makes them angry.
I mean, they spent an incredible amount of propaganda dollars against us, especially after Zar won, according to a 40-second preview of the movie. Honestly, I think we were the most debated topic in Iran at the time of the festival. But things have changed so drastically that I think… expect — now they have many other headaches.
Read more of the International Film edition here.
