The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009)

It was totally engrossing and disturbing (and I mean this in a good way) but it seemed a little simplistic and manipulative. For example, the main bad guys had little nuance - they were pure evil (the mayor was the only character that was interesting). And the stoning scene was just too much. Yes, I understand that this really does happen, and that I should expect this in a movie with this title, but we just couldn't watch the whole, long stoning scene.

Powerful, moving, anger-inducing indictment on mob rule, injustice, modern-day barbarism and religious zealotry and manipulation. The ending might be obvious from the title, but the back story is incredibly powerful. The event itself is brutally graphic, and demonstrates the effect of the irrational behaviour that came before it.Based on a true story, the plot is solid, as is the direction. The performances by the leads - Shohreh Aghdashloo and Mozhan Marno - are excellent.A must-see, but not for the faint-hearted.

An Iranian journalist based overseas stumbles upon a horrific tale of fear, ignorance and mob brutality when his car breaks down in a remote village.Taking this tale, based on a true story, and transferring it to screen throws up a number of challenges. Stoning people to death is barbaric and there is no justification for it. But it happens, and for a reason, and the film admirably sets out to show why. It avoids the trap of being an educational film, explaining in exposition the sociocultural reasons for such events, by staying focused on Soraya's plight and the inexorable unfolding of small episodes that lead to the stoning. There are, thankfully, no ironic or sub-textual references to Iran, patriarchy or Sharia law made. Another aspect of this approach is the Hollywood characterisation and plotting. The is unsurprising given the film school the director graduated from, but it takes this viscerally repellent event and somehow puts a genre stamp on it. This is most glaringly revealed in the journalist's action-movie style escape from the village, including a piece of trickery with a tape that invites us to high-five with the fleeing journalist, a tone that is out of place since we have just spent quarter of an hour watching a woman being stoned by her friends, neighbours, and family. The characterisation works in the sense that it is familiar - the amoral man of God, the dithering village leader, the corrupt and forceful husband, the compromised village idiot - but also jars, in that these characters are archetypes of Hollywood drama fiction, and as enjoyable and successful as they are in such an arena, they seem like interlopers here. Perhaps I wanted the film to feel more documentary like, or take an unusual approach such as Hunger did to the Bobby Sands story. I cannot articulate the engagement with this topic that I wanted to see, I just feel this wasn't it.Acting is excellent, especially Shohreh Aghdashloo as Zahra, Mozhan Marnò as Soraya M., and a chilling Navid Negahban as instigator husband Ali. I suspect the film will survive more in the university classrooms of Culture Studies departments than the pantheons of cinema, but it is a film worth watching nonetheless.

Once again Iran movies have made me feel that they are the best in the world. I have seen lot of Painful movies like this one but only this one got tears in my eyes. The performance is outstanding how you will react when you know that you will dying in one hour.In a simple word i can say that they have showed what happens in today's world a death of innocence.Yes if you liked Passion of Christ then you will like this more then that.Must watch