The Stoning of Soraya M.(2009)

Based on a true story

Short pooper:
Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) is stoned to death by the entire village, but Ali (Navid Negabhan) does not get to marry Mehri (Laila Qutub), since her father was nonetheless executed. On his way out of town, Freidoune (Jim Caviezel) is intercepted by Revolutionary Guards, who confiscate all his equipment, but Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) appears at the last minute and provides him with the actual tape, helping him escape with the details of the interview in hand.

Longer version:
The story takes place in the form of flashbacks providing the basis of an interview given by Zahra, the grieving aunt of Soraya Manutcheri, to journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, who found himself stranded, due to car troubles, in the middle of small-town Central Iran. She, at first, approaches him, after finding out he is a journalist and he reluctantly agrees to listen and record “the harrowing story she has for him”, while his car is fixed. The story is about the cruel and brutal murder, the day before, of her niece.

Soraya was married to an abusive man named Ali and had two sons with him. When Ali expresses his intention to marry a local 14-year-old girl named Mehri, in order to save her father from being executed for a non-disclosed crime, an unbelievable chain of events ensues. First, Ali tries to convince the village’s “mullah” (Ali Pourtash) to divorce them -by threatening to disclose the mullah’s own criminal past-, but the mullah cannot do anything. When the wife of a mechanic dies, Ali convinces Zahra to get Soraya into becoming the man’s caretaker, which Soraya selflessly does.

Ali sees this as an opportunity, with the mullah’s help, to start a rolling rumour about Soraya allegedly being unfaithful to him with the widowed mechanic, in the hopes of her being charged with adultery and sentenced to death by stoning -a common capital punishment in Iran-, so he would not have to undergo the trouble of divorcing her or paying her child support, he could keep their two children and would not have to return her original dowry from their marriage.

Despite Soraya’s efforts to disprove it, the ruse slowly succeeds and grows a life of its own, especially when Ali and the mullah coerce the mechanic to be their “third witness” needed to turn the allegation into a formal accusation. The whole town is acquainted with this when Ali drags Soraya through the streets and publicly berates and beats her for the alleged infidelity. Zahra intervenes and desperately pleads to speak to the Mayor (David Diaan), privately, at her house. However, he demands to hear the mechanic’s version and, as he corroborates the slanderous accusation, a trial is mandated to prosecute Soraya, with many of the local men -including Soraya’s own father, Morteza (Vachik Mangassarian), who has been brainwashed into the whole ruse- present as jury, while Soraya is detained and confined at Zahra’s house, nervously awaiting for the verdict and hoping she will be cleared.

Unfortunately, Soraya is quickly and unanimously found guilty. Horrified, Zahra tries to flee with Soraya but, due to the narrow-mindedness of everyone around them, it is not possible. She again makes a last-ditch attempt to plead for her niece’s life with the Mayor, even offering to trade places with Soraya if she can be spared, but he upholds the decision, with everyone riled up for it to happen. Zahra falls into despair upon the injustice, but Soraya reassures her that, having understood there would be no escaping from any of it, she has accepted her fate.

Soraya is brought to the center of the town, where, as customary for this type of sentence, she is buried up to her waist. At the same time this takes place, a travelling circus passes by but they are rudely run off by everyone, already frantic for the awaited punishment against the woman. Morteza, as the father -and “because of the aggravation brought upon him by the heinous crime”-, is given the first two stones to throw against Soraya, but he fails in hitting her, which one of the women in the crowd sees as a sign of an injustice taking place, to which no one pays attention. Ali tries and strikes her once; he then forces his two boys to throw stones, also hitting her. Despondent over what he allowed himself to be part of, the mechanic declines to cast any stones against Soraya and just tearfully walks away. Finally, everyone else joins in and savagely stones Soraya, multiple times, until she slumps down, dead. The whole act is witnessed in horror by the members of the circus, from a nearby hill.

The story finishes and returns to the present, with Zahra adding that Soraya’s body was taken to a nearby clearing and thrown off for the wild animals to devour it, but she did her niece a favour and, instead, burned it. Meanwhile, Ali’s whole plan backfires: he was not able to save Mehri’s father, who was put to death, and, in consequence, their marriage is called off. He is last seen leaving the village in shame. Also, the mechanic, who was fixing Freidoune’s car all along, delivers the vehicle and, enraged for what he was forced to do, admits that he lied.

It becomes well-known that a journalist is in town, talking to Zahra, so, as Freidoune gets ready to leave, on his way out, he is pulled over by Revolutionary Guards and, at gunpoint, forced to surrender all his equipment, including what appeared to be the tapes he recorded with Zahra’s interview, to be destroyed, after which he is ordered to leave and never return. However, at the edge of town, Zahra appears, brandishing the actual tape, which she had been able to save, and goading Freidoune to come and retrieve it from her. Freidoune makes a desperate run towards Zahra while the Guards try to stop him, but he beats them, collects the tape and drives off to safety, while Zahra scolds everyone and cheers, lively proclaiming that the whole world would now know the truth of how an entire town was participant and accomplice to a horrible crime. a tragic ending.