The Stoning of Soraya M ( 2008 )

Movie review score

The Stoning of Soraya M ( 2008 ) :-

One of most impacting & disturbing movie i have seen in recent times. Such a powerful script based on true incidents occurred in Iran which got a innocent women to face tragic ending. Just because her husband doesn't want to continue live with her and at same time doesn't want to settle amount for her to apply divorce , with his influence he plots a fox game and with his few friends in the village at power. They all prove her by passing gossips in village and arranging a fake witness to prove that she have betrayed her husband committing adultery with one of recently widowed men in the same village hence as a capital punishment in that region , they decide to kill her by stoning. A french-Arabic journalist travels via that village , gets to halt when his car breaks down and somehow ends up to meet Zahara who is a relative of Soraya and slowly gets to know all the incidents happened a day before which led to a killing of a innocent women. Freidoune Sahebjam ( journalist ) later gets out of that place under a narrow escape from the villagers along with the recorded tapes of Zara's statements and publishes book on this incident "La Femme Lapidée" which shook the whole world upside down . bringing the dark side of these region to light. This was the incident which brought the brutality of capital punishment to the outside world.

Soraya

Mozhan Marnò as Soraya done a excellent performance to that role & sure lived up to it and Jim Caviezel as the journalist along with zara play a central part of the film . This is more then a movie drama but rather felt as a most disturbing and touching Documentary ever made. The way she gets prepared for stoning or when she cry while her own children throw stones at her was just too bad to take and there is no person in the world who could just watch those scenes without tears in their eyes. This really rises a question in us to ask our own soul if we are really humans or just a advanced version of animals. The way those villagers kill her when she keeps crying and when she is almost dead but just a little life left , her husband checks her breath and ask the village men to again throw the stone is the worst and the baddest part of it , a heart trenching one. None has any rights to kill another human and this is too horrible to see when a life is plucked out like this in bits and pieces. I am sure this is one of the worst capital punishment which is still followed in many places. These laws can easily be broken, molded as needed by men in power and can be used against innocents , making Soraya as one of victim to this stupidest law.. This movie is a very good example for that. I really warm viewers to take more caution to watch last 20 min as its really disturbing and believe me, once you watch it then the way you treat other life forms would change for sure and this movie would haunt you for many days and nights. I could still hear the scream and last cry of Soraya when i think of it. Writing this review itself is not a easy thing for me to do as thinking about this movie shatters me a bit .This is one of Finest Iranian films seen with so good message coming from it. Hats of to director Cyrus to bring this book to life and the way it was picturized was so good and unique to iranian cinemas.. Definitely not for week hearted.