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A Stone's Throw

Freidoune Sahebjam is a French journalist and war correspondent who has spent a great deal of time in Iran. Because he is the son of a former Iranian ambassador, he is fluent in the native language and familiar with life there. While driving through a remote area he experiences car trouble and is towed to a local shop to have his auto repaired. While there, he encounters a very nervous woman who is compelled to tell him of what has occurred in her small village the day before. The other townspeople are clearly unhappy about this and dismiss her to the newcomer as someone of frail mind. Thus begins "The Stoning of Soraya M.", a tale of religiosity that has gone over to the side of evil but more importantly, it is a story of local craziness and corruption.

James Caviezel plays the young reporter but his role is confined to the first and last 15 minutes of the film. The bulk of our time is spent listening to Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) recalling the events of the previous days and the accompanying flashbacks. Ms. Aghdashloo delivers a strong performance, although it struck me as odd that a woman who lived in a remote village of Iran would be fluent in English. I’ll assume that this is a form of poetic license.

The story surprised me in that I had assumed it would focus on religious fundamentalism as the root of the evil we witness. However, more so than that, it is about lust, individual corruption, and lack of backbone and character. This is good old fashioned bad behavior that is enabled by religious fundamentalism but not caused by it.

Soraya M (Mozhan Marnò) lives with Ali (Navid Negahban), an abusive husband, and her two teenage sons and two younger daughters. Ali wants out of the marriage and offers up a meager settlement. She balks, not the usual response in this community. At least that is how it feels while watching it. Ali enlists the help of the local Mullah and the mayor of the town and together they mount a whisper campaign designed to prove that Soraya is an adulterer which would enable Ali to be granted a divorce. It also sets in motion the process that leads to the title of the film.

"The Stoning of Soraya M" can be divided into very distinctive parts. The first 20 or so minutes is set-up. Then comes the flashbacks. Finally, there comes something that I haven’t seen in quite some time. The closest I can come to describing it is to compare it to what used to be called snuff films - movie events that claimed to be showing us real-life murders. This last section is almost impossible to watch. It is cruel, barbaric, and graphic in nature and can possibly be best described as an assault on the senses. I understand that director Cyrus Nowrasteh is trying to make us appalled. But instead of making us hate what is going on in the reality of this part of the world, we instead can only meekly recoil in disgust. "The Stoning of Soraya M" is worth a visit but be prepared to be overwhelmed by extremely raw footage that at times is scarily realistic.