Every person shall meet what they wish to avoid. - Ancient Persian proverb
On the surface Saeed is a devout Shia Muslim and devoted family man, but when night falls he gets on a motorcycle, looks for sex workers, murders them, and dumps their bodies in fields. A one-man jihad against vice and immorality. In the ensuing media frenzy a lone female journalist from Tehran, Rahimi, vows to track the killer down, alone.
Holy Spider is based on real events in Mashhad, Iran, where in the space of a year 16 sex workers were murdered. The film is realistic in another way in that it uncovers the age-old misogyny that runs rampant in Iran. Protests are currently raking the nation after a woman was arrested by the "morality" police for failing to wear her headscarf properly and ended up dead in a prison cell. Many Iranians, including relatives of the victims, believe the women who died are worthless and deserving of their fates because they were "immoral." Rahimi fights this extreme prejudice as well as a mass murderer.
Holy Spider combines everything I love about film; glimpses of the underground, a distant and diverse land, an underdog protagonist, well written dialogue, stylish photography and costumes, a fantastic and unconventional story based on a graphic novel, and chilling, hypnotic music. The language of Holy Spider is Persian and it was shot in Jordan. Director Ali Abbasi is Iran born and Denmark based. Sar Amir Ebrahimi (Rahimi) won the best actress award this year at Cannes for her performance. Both were present at the Toronto International Film Festival screening I attended. Apparently Ebrahimi wasn't Abbasi's first choice for the role. He thought she was too nice to be Rahimi, but then she got so angry with him, and was so convincing in her anger that he gave her the role. Everything worked out well in the end.
On the surface Saeed is a devout Shia Muslim and devoted family man, but when night falls he gets on a motorcycle, looks for sex workers, murders them, and dumps their bodies in fields. A one-man jihad against vice and immorality. In the ensuing media frenzy a lone female journalist from Tehran, Rahimi, vows to track the killer down, alone.
Holy Spider is based on real events in Mashhad, Iran, where in the space of a year 16 sex workers were murdered. The film is realistic in another way in that it uncovers the age-old misogyny that runs rampant in Iran. Protests are currently raking the nation after a woman was arrested by the "morality" police for failing to wear her headscarf properly and ended up dead in a prison cell. Many Iranians, including relatives of the victims, believe the women who died are worthless and deserving of their fates because they were "immoral." Rahimi fights this extreme prejudice as well as a mass murderer.
Holy Spider combines everything I love about film; glimpses of the underground, a distant and diverse land, an underdog protagonist, well written dialogue, stylish photography and costumes, a fantastic and unconventional story based on a graphic novel, and chilling, hypnotic music. The language of Holy Spider is Persian and it was shot in Jordan. Director Ali Abbasi is Iran born and Denmark based. Sar Amir Ebrahimi (Rahimi) won the best actress award this year at Cannes for her performance. Both were present at the Toronto International Film Festival screening I attended. Apparently Ebrahimi wasn't Abbasi's first choice for the role. He thought she was too nice to be Rahimi, but then she got so angry with him, and was so convincing in her anger that he gave her the role. Everything worked out well in the end.